Bond On Bond (19 page)

‘Action!’ called Lewis, and I was tipped sideways into the canal yet again. This happened on five takes, where one side inflated faster than the other, tipping me in each time. Each time, the laughter increased, as did the size of the crowds gathered. Take 6 – and my final dry suit. Thankfully, it worked and we wrapped for the day.

Next morning, I hopped inside the Ford-chassis gondola to drive it right the way across the square, which by then was starting to fill with tourists. Rather than attempt to control the crowds, Lewis said we’d just shoot, as they really wouldn’t know what we were doing until it was over.

‘Fair enough,’ I said. ‘But I really do feel I need some sort of horn to warn people that there is a motorized gondola approaching them, driven by an English actor, on St Mark’s Square as it’s not something they’d really expect.’ They found some sort of claxon, and I literally beep-beeped my way around unsuspecting tourists, across to a sharp right turn down a narrow road. It was so narrow the F/X boys put Vaseline down the side of the gondola so I could slip down more easily.

Then of course in
Live And Let Die
I took it to another extreme when I drove an AEC Regent RT-type double-decker bus. I remember that day well: it was 7 December 1972, on location in Montego Bay, Jamaica, and I had to drive it under a low bridge, sheering off the top deck. Maurice Patchett from London Transport’s Chiswick depot spent three months preparing for the stunt, including taking me on a crash course – forgive the pun – on the Chiswick skid pad. Maurice took over the driving as the bus headed for the bridge; the top deck had been carefully removed and replaced only on rollers, to ensure a relatively clean detachment as it hit at precisely 30 mph.

Maurice said that if the film game didn’t work out for me, I’d make a good London bus man. That would have pleased my mum, who still lived in hope I might one day get a proper job.

I also chopped the top of a car off in a film – a Renault 11 taxi in fact – in the Parisian scenes of
A View To A Kill
, while trying to chase Grace Jones. Wish I hadn’t bothered trying, actually. Nevertheless, that was a terrific sequence, all very carefully orchestrated by the superb Remy Julienne. Alas, these days when visiting Paris I have to sit in the traffic just like everyone else.

In my last 007 outing, I found myself at the controls of a San Francisco fire truck. When I heard we were going to be shooting in the city, I thought, ‘Oh, here we go, another attempt at bettering
Bullit
with Steve McQueen,’ but when they told me my mode of transport would be somewhat different, I was intrigued. It certainly cleared the traffic off the roads.

And just to prove Q didn’t exclusively think of the 00 section in his work, he designed himself a fishing boat – for his retirement. The Q-boat came equipped with submersible capabilities, torpedoes, rocket booster and GPS tracking, though Q was keen to point out it was not properly finished when Jim took off in it during
The World Is Not Enough
.

I can’t end any discussion of Bond cars and assorted vehicles without mentioning the AMC Hornet, can I? The what? Well, if I was to say when Jim is chasing Mary Goodnight in
The Man With The Golden Gun
, he steals a car in which Sheriff J.W. Pepper is about to take a test drive, you’ll be with me. During the chase, Jim makes a corkscrew jump over a river. That wasn’t just lucky guesswork, but the first case of a computer designing a stunt. Race car driver Jay Milligan, who promoted the American Thrill Show during the 1960s and 1970s, first performed the stunt, known as the Astro Spiral Jump, on 12 January 1972 at the Houston Astrodome. Always keen to hear about anything a bit unusual or daring, Cubby was soon told about the stunt everyone was talking about, and put a call through to Milligan.

Researchers at Cornell University for the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration did a computer simulation of the stunt to calculate the exact angles required, speeds to drive and so forth. These details were passed over to the production team, and the bridge was erected.

With Milligan supervising, the 360-degree spiral was shot in just one take, with British stuntman ‘Bumps’ Williard at the wheel and with eight cameras simultaneously capturing the action. Meanwhile divers, ambulances and cranes were on standby in case of any unforeseen consequences. The jump was over in a second and to achieve greater screen time is shown in slow motion. Williard was given a large bonus for completing it on the first take, by the way.