The only James Bond movie where everyone hated each other’s guts: “I did the best I could”
As if the pressure wasn’t already intense enough on what was comfortably the most important James Bond movie that had ever been made at the time, the production was quickly beset by behind-the-scenes squabbling that saw people from all departments end up at each other’s throats.
For several reasons, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service was pivotal. For one thing, it was the first 007 adventure that didn’t star Sean Connery in the lead role, and in the hope that lightning would strike twice, the sixth instalment cast an actor who was even more unknown than Connery was in the early 1960s.
It was also the feature-length directorial debut of Peter R Hunt, who’d worked his way up from an editor and assistant director to calling the shots. He was more familiar with the franchise than most, but there are never any guarantees when a first-time filmmaker takes the helm, especially on a big-budget project.
An untested and unproven leading man and an inexperienced director turned out to be the least of the film’s worries, though, after it became increasingly clear that playing nice wasn’t on the agenda. Diana Rigg was cast as the resident ‘Bond girl’, Teresa di Vincenzo, and she did not get on with her onscreen paramour. “I did the best I could, but, oh dear lord, he had a perfectly good chance, and he wasn’t bad in the film, was he?” she pondered.
“It was perfectly good,” she continued. “It was just that he was impossible to deal with. That is a classic example of somebody who doesn’t know how to deal with fame and got it wrong.” Rigg wasn’t the biggest fan of Lazenby, then, and the feeling was mutual. “Well, she’s got her problems,” he retorted. “You can’t talk down to her, or talk at her, you’ve got to talk up to her, and this is the same with Telly Savalas and everyone else.” So far, that’s the two leads and the villain not seeing eye-to-eye, which was only the tip of the iceberg.
“Everyone bad-mouthed everyone else,” the one-time Bond explained. “Peter was bad-mouthing the producers, the producers were bad-mouthing the director. I found on the whole picture, the only one you could get any honesty out of at all was from the guy who was supposed to be the most evil of all: Harry Saltzman. Harry Saltzman is the straightest shooter of all of them, and because of his being a straight shooter, he’s the most disliked.”
For those keeping count: Rigg disliked Lazenby, he didn’t think too highly of her, and he wasn’t entirely fond of Savalas, either. In addition, Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli were sniping at Hunt, who was sniping back at them, and, apart from the freshly minted Bond, nobody else seemed to like Saltzman at all.
What about John Glen, the returning editor who’d eventually follow in Hunt’s footsteps and graduate to directing five entries? On the plus side, he said he’d “gotten along” with Lazenby, but when he resurfaced during post-production with longer hair and a beard, Broccoli was borderline apoplectic.
“Cubby got so angry because he was trying to promote this chap as James Bond, and he’s looking like a tramp,” Glen recalled. As it turned out, the 007 steward wasn’t thrilled with the Australian, adding another feud into the mix. On the plus side, at least On Her Majesty’s Secret Service turned out pretty good.
