How close was Burt Reynolds to playing James Bond, really? “At the time, the hottest actor in the world”
When it comes to turning down roles that would go on to become iconic or award-winning, no actor in history made more mistakes than Burt Reynolds. For decades, he told anyone who’d listen that James Bond was one of them, but how close was that to the actual truth?
Obviously, since the franchise has been going strong for over 60 years and only six actors have played the character in the 25 official instalments to date, many more names have either unsuccessfully auditioned or rejected an offer to play 007 than those who’ve donned the tux and downed the shaken-not-stirred martinis.
None of them has been American, with the Australia-born George Lazenby the only one of the sextet from outside the United Kingdom and Ireland, but Eon Productions considered it before. Most notably, James Brolin was cast and told that he’d be inheriting the role from Roger Moore, only for the current incumbent to change his mind and decide he fancied saving the world again.
Clint Eastwood was also approached after Sean Connery’s initial exit following You Only Live Twice, but he believed the secret agent shouldn’t be played by anyone other than a Brit. Reynolds claimed he was much of the same mind, suggesting that when they came knocking on his door, a combination of trepidation and Americana made it an easy decision for him to say no to guns, gadgets, and girls.
It’s not that he was lying, but it might be stretching the bounds of credulity ever so slightly to say that Bond was his if he wanted it. In fact, it sounds an awful lot like he didn’t really stand much chance of taking over from Lazenby after the ill-fated but since reappraised On Her Majesty’s Secret Service or in the wake of Connery’s one-and-done return, since the saga’s ultimate decision maker almost instantly ruled him out.
Then again, Tom Mankiewicz, who wrote Diamonds Are Forever, Live and Let Die, and The Man with the Golden Gun, was an integral part of the Bond brain trust in the early 1970s, told both sides of the story. “Burt Reynolds almost played Bond,” he unequivocally recalled in the book, Nobody Does It Better, with four-time 007 director Guy Hamilton his biggest supporter.
“What was funny is, at the time we were doing Diamonds Are Forever, Cubby and Guy went over to meet an actor named Burt Reynolds, who was doing a series called Dan August at the time. Guy thought he was charming as hell. Burt’s name came up again at Live and Let Die. As a matter of fact, the choice was between Burt Reynolds and Roger Moore.”
However, he then told the other side of the story. “When I say ‘choice’, Burt’s agent, Dick Clayton, had read the script, and they were discussing it very seriously,” the scribe explained. “He had just done Deliverance. I think the biggest problem would have been getting him for three pictures, or four pictures. He was a very viable choice at the time.”
From a star power and box office perspective, he was, but there was one very important and influential person he failed to convince, with Mankiewicz revealing that “Cubby was the one who nixed it.” The patriarch of the Broccoli family “really put his foot down and said James Bond has to be English,” which instantly ruled Reynolds out of contention. After the 007 team was told by their boss that “you can’t do this,” they missed out on a star who was, by their estimation, “At the time, the hottest actor in the world.”
