The actor convinced they’d be replacing Sean Connery as James Bond: “Or so I thought”
It’s been one of the industry’s most hotly contested casting races for decades, but the process of finding the second actor to play James Bond after Sean Connery decided to vacate the tux and strike out on his own away from the role that made him a star comfortably carried the most pressure – and danger.
After all, Connery had originated the suave secret agent in Dr No and played him in the next four instalments of the nascent franchise, so as far as the cinemagoing public was concerned, he was 007. Anyone who followed in his footsteps had the potential to make or break their career in one swoop, and everyone knows how that turned out for his replacement.
George Lazenby signed a multi-picture deal to take over from Connery, but his contract only lasted for a solitary film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, making him the only one-and-done Bond in history. It was the high point of a career that basically went nowhere after that, indicating that it may well have been a poisoned chalice for anyone brave enough to step into the breach.
With Lazenby out of the picture in rapid time, the hunt for a new Bond was back on much sooner than anyone had anticipated. Eventually, the producers circled back around to Connery and convinced him that it was worth his time to make a short-lived comeback in Diamonds Are Forever before Roger Moore was brought in as a long-term 007.
Between those two points, though, multiple actors threw their hat into the ring. One of them was Simon Oates, who’d worked extensively on stage and television throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He screen-tested for Bond at Pinewood Studios, and when his audition ended with a round of applause, he assumed he was in a good position.
“Well, that should be you, son; you’re all right,” he recalled a member of the production team telling him, albeit with a caveat: “Or so I thought.” It’s never a good idea for an actor to get their hopes up before a contract has been signed, sealed, and delivered, with Oates experiencing mixed emotions over his close call with Bond.
“I didn’t hear anything back from the producers, so it never happened for me, but, you know, life goes on,” he said. “It would have been nice to have played Bond, but then you look at Lazenby and where’s he? Of course, it would have been a success if I’d played it, my dear. But playing Bond would have totally changed my life, maybe for the best, maybe for the worst. I’m more than happy with the way my career and life went.”
As Connery and several of his successors can attest, playing Bond has always had an element of the double-edged sword, but Oates didn’t seem too disheartened in the long run that he missed out.
