Mark A. Altman - Tor/Forge Blog

Our Favorite Bond Villains

February 6, 2020February 5, 2020admin2 Comments

By Jennifer McClelland-Smith

opens in a new window Bond. James Bond. A name that excites film lovers and thriller fanatics alike. Get a true behind-the-scenes look at the world’s most famous film franchise in opens in a new windowNobody Does It Better: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross. As they did in their oral histories of Battlestar Galactica and Star Trek, Altman & Gross offer reflections from over 150 cast, crew, critics and filmmakers telling behind-the-scenes stories of every Bond film. But what’s a good 007 adventure without a great villain? Take a look back at some of our favorites throughout this illustrious film series.

Dr. No

The title villain from the first film in the James Bond series, how could we not put Dr. No at the top of the list? A mad scientist living in a secret lair in the Caribbean with bone-crushing metal prosthetic hands determined to sabotage American missile tests with radio waves, he’s the perfect first film foil for 007. His demise in the boiling coolant of his own nuclear reactor is one of the most satisfying.

May Day

Played by the legendary Grace Jones, May Day is the bodyguard and lover of Max Zorin, Bond’s nemesis in A View to a Kill. After Zorin betrays her and tries to have her killed, she turns on him and becomes Bond’s ally. Stylish, sexy and unforgettable, May Day makes the ultimate sacrifice, perishing while preventing Zorin’s massive bomb from exploding and destroying Silicon Valley.

Auric Goldfinger

Some have said this gold-obsessed title villain is the most famous in the Bondiverse. With the help of Oddjob and Kisch, two legendary henchmen themselves, Goldfinger’s nefarious plot to not steal the gold from Fort Knox, but blow it up with an atomic bomb is one of the more destructive Bond has to defeat. All this plus he utters perhaps the most famous line of any Bond villain, “No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to die.”

Xenia Onatopp

The ultimate femme fatale. The most-over-the-top Bond girl name. Featured in Goldeneye, Onatopp is a former fighter pilot in the Soviet army who finds sexual satisfaction in crushing men to death with her signature thigh-grip. Her thighs are no match for our hero who sends her to a violent end involving a helicopter, a safety harness and a tree.

Ernst Stavro Blofeld

Appearing in eight James Bond films, this bald, grey-suited villain with a cat on his lap may look familiar as the inspiration for Austin Powers’ Evil, Inspector Gadget’s Dr. Claw and Danger Mouse’s Baron Silas Greenback. He’s the head of SPECTRE, the global criminal organization responsible for so many of James Bond’s missions. Portrayed by a number of actors including Donald Pleasance, Max Von Sydow and Christoph Waltz, this archenemy of Her Majesty’s Secret Service is the ultimate Bond villain and the perfect foil for the world’s most famous intelligence officer.

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Nobody Does it Better by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross

January 23, 2020April 11, 2024admin

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opens in a new windowThe ultimate oral history of the only gentleman secret agent with a license to kill… and thrill…telling the incredible, uncensored true stories of the James Bond franchise and spy mania.

For over five decades, the cinematic adventures of James Bond have thrilled moviegoers. Now, bestselling authors Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross take you behind-the-scenes of the most famous and beloved movie franchise of all-time filled with reflections from over 150 cast, crew, critics and filmmakers who reflect on the impact of this legendary movie franchise as well as share their thoughts about their favorite (and least) favorite 007 adventures and spy mania which gripped fans the world over in the wake of the success of the James Bond films.

From Russia–with love, course–to Vegas, from below the bright blue waters of the Bahamas in search of a missing nuclear weapon to the top of the Golden Gate Bridge, from below the seas in Stromberg’s new Noah’s Ark of Atlantis into orbit with Hugo Drax, opens in a new windowNobody Does It Better: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of James Bond tells the amazing, true story of the birth of James Bond through the latest remarkable James Bond adventures as well as the Spy mania classics that enthralled the world.

It’s Bond and Beyond from the critically acclaimed authors of the bestselling The Fifty-Year Mission and So Say We All.

opens in a new windowNobody Does it Better will be available on February 11, 2020. Please enjoy the following excerpt.

THE SIXTIES: THE DOCTOR IS IN

“No, Mister Bond, I expect you to die.…”

Two decades into the twenty-first century, it’s hard to imagine what it was like to first see Dr. No in a theater unless you were actually there. It was 1962, only two decades after the end of World War Two. The Cold War was heating up; the Soviet Union signed a trade pact with communist Cuba, triggering a U.S. trade embargo; downed U2 pilot Francis Gary Powers was exchanged for convicted Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in Berlin on the Glienicke Bridge; and astronaut John Glenn became the first American to orbit the Earth. In August, East German border guards murdered eighteen-year old Peter Fechter as he attempted to make it over the Berlin Wall, while an assassination attempt was made against French President Charles de Gaulle, escalating global tensions.

Meanwhile, the glamorous Jackie Kennedy took viewers on a tour of the White House in a nationally televised special, AT&T put the first commercial communications satellite into orbit, Wilt “The Stilt” Chamberlain became the first basketball player to score 100 points in a game (and more than likely 100 women as well), Bob Dylan released his first album, and West Side Story won Best Picture at the Oscars. Tragically, it was also the year in which Marilyn Monroe was found dead in bed from an overdose of sleeping pills.

Ironically, it was also the year that Air France Flight 007 crashed on take-off in Paris, while at movie theaters 007 first took off. In October 1962, only weeks before the Cuban Missile Crisis had the world on the brink of a nuclear exchange (and on the same day that The Beatles released their first single, “Love Me Do”), Dr. No debuted in theaters. As presidents such as Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton both said many years later in explaining the appeal of 007, it was very reassuring to audiences to know a secret agent like James Bond was looking out for Queen and country and making the world safe for democracy.

DR. NO (1962)

The milieu in which the early James Bond films took place was still remarkably exciting and unfamiliar to most fans. Movies about tradecraft (aka spying) had largely been dour affairs and set in the run-up to or during World War II in which American and British spies attempted to foil the Nazi or German spies that had infiltrated America. While legendary director Alfred Hitchcock had visited the world of espionage with relish in such films as Notorious, The Man Who Knew Too Much, The Lady Vanishes and Secret Agent, it’s his classic 1959 masterpiece, North By Northwest, that would in many ways prove the template for over five decades of James Bond adventures, filled with a protagonist who travels in high society (in this case, a New York advertising executive mistaken for nonexistent spy George Kaplan); a picturesque travelogue from Manhattan hotels and the United Nations, to trains to prairies to Mount Rushmore; a coterie of elegant villains top-lined by James Mason; and, of course, a beautiful woman in danger, the resourceful Eva Marie Saint.

JAMES STRATTON

(author, Hitchcock’s North by Northwest: The Man Who Had Too Much)

North by Northwest brought lavish production values, attractive leads, and glamour to what had been grittier, film noir-like narratives. Also, unlike the more cerebral, complex narratives of le Carré, the emphasis was on a series of loosely connected thrill-ride adventures. The suggestion that the government was gathering intelligence in a way that was murky and dispassionate would be expanded on by subsequent entries in the genre.

JAMES CHAPMAN

(author, Hitchcock and the Spy Film)

Obviously Bond would go to some wild places that Hitchcock never would have, but, given North by Northwest, does it feel like a natural progression for Hitchcock from his spy films to, at the very least, Dr. No and From Russia With Love? I think the look and style of the early Bond films were very strongly influenced by North by Northwest. Most spy movies in the 1950s, in Britain and Hollywood, were relatively low-budget, black-and-white affairs. Supporting features at best. Hitchcock’s film demonstrated that the genre could be mounted on a bigger, more spectacular, A-feature scale.

JAMES STRATTON

North by Northwest gave Bond the following: the quickly changing multiple locations, the smart-assed, irreverent verbal reactions, the sophisticated debonair villains, the complicated assaults, the sustained physical abuse of the hero, and the initially distant female character who becomes an ally.

Dr. No from United Artists offered everything North by Northwest did and more. In the colorful, globetrotting and, at times, sadistic film, the sinister Dr. Julius No is working for SPECTRE (the unforgettable acronym for Special Executive for Counter-intelligence, Terrorism, Revenge, and Extortion) to topple American rocket launches. One man stands in his way, James Bond, the only gentleman secret agent with a license to kill … and thrill … as the trailers bombastically heralded Sean Connery’s tuxedo-clad arrival.

Played with sinister aplomb by Joseph Wiseman, who feared being typecast in a series of faux Fu Manchu-like roles, Dr. No brings an understated menace to the proceedings with a dash of elegance and class. His lair is hidden on the island of Crab Key, whose exteriors were filmed on the beaches of Ian Fleming’s beloved Jamaica, and stunning Ken Adam-designed interiors—unlike audiences had ever seen before—back at Pinewood Studios. “Minnows pretending to be whales,” muses 007. It depends on which side of the glass you’re on.

Although early development revolved around adapting Thunderball, plans were abandoned when it became clear to Broccoli and Saltzman that the legal rights were potentially encumbered due to the litigation between Kevin McClory and Ian Fleming. Instead, they chose to develop Dr. No, giving birth to the world’s greatest movie franchise along the way.

RICHARD MAIBAUM

(cowriter, Dr. No)

Deciding to go with Dr. No first was one of the best things that ever happened. At that time I went to England and was put to work. I was told to collaborate with Wolf Mankowitz. We read the book again and fell on the floor and said, “What is this? This guy? A Chinaman with two hooks? Fu Manchu and all that kind of stuff, that’s gone out with long winter underwear.” We decided that Dr. No would be a monkey that sat on the shoulder of the villain, who was going to be the professor. That’s the way we wrote it.

RAY MORTON

(senior writer, Script magazine)

Mankowitz’s contributions to Dr. No appear to have been minimal. He worked with Maibaum on an early treatment and apparently had a hard time taking the assignment seriously, since he was allegedly the person responsible for transforming the character of Doctor No into a monkey carried around by Buckman, a more mundane bad guy he created, because he felt Fleming’s Fu Manchu-style villain was ridiculous. Mankowitz’s presumption ticked off Cubby Broccoli, so Mankowitz withdrew from the project, leaving Maibaum to carry on alone.

WOLF MANKOWTIZ

(uncredited cowriter, Dr. No)

There were many disagreements with the producers, one of them on the tone of the script. I always intended it to be a spoof. In fact, I wanted “Doctor No” to be an ape.

RICHARD MAIBAUM

When we handed in the treatment, both Cubby and Harry Saltzman screamed and hollered and yelled and said, “No, this monkey is terrible. We want the Chinaman with the hooks.” Wolf Mankowitz didn’t like what happened and quit. I was there alone, and the monkey was out. Though whenever Cubby and I had an argument about something, he would yell at me, “Dr. No was a monkey!”

While the script was being written, the search began for a director. Although Terence Young would eventually get the gig, first up was Guy Hamilton, whose most recent films at the time had been An Inspector Calls (1954), Charley Moon (1956), Manuela (1957) and The Devil’s Disciple (1959). But family issues prevented him from being able to commit to the shooting schedule in Jamaica and he bowed out. The job fell to Young, who was born on June 20, 1915 in Shanghai, China. His pre-Bond directorial credits include Corridor of Mirrors (1948), Safari (1956), Action of the Tiger (1957), and Black Tights (1961). After directing Dr. No, From Russia with Love (1963), and Thunderball (1965), he moved on to such projects as Wait until Dark (1967), Red Sun (1971), The Valachi Papers (1972), Bloodline (1979), Inchon (1981), The Jigsaw Man (1984), and Run for Your Life (1988).

Early on in his career, Young received training as a writer and sold several screenplays. In World War II he was a part of the Guards Armored Division and was wounded twice in battle. His feeling, though, was the experience provided a more-rounded understanding of men in action. Later, in 1948, he encountered playwright Sherwood Anderson, from whom he learned the fast-moving style that would later be utilized by him in the Bond films.

TERENCE YOUNG

(director, Dr. No)

I learned not to use up time and attention introducing characters and getting them started. He also taught me the importance of strong “go-outers,” which is the line you write to take someone off the scene in an unforgettable way.

DAVID V. PICKER

(president and chief executive officer, United Artists)

As I’m sure is the same with everyone else in the world, I found Terence to be a charming, witty, extremely literate, and pleasant gentleman. I appreciated his time and his willingness to talk openly about his friendship with Ian Fleming and his observations of the world of James Bond. Certainly no one knows more about the creation of the cinema’s 007 than the man who defined a genre, creating Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and Thunderball, three of the first and probably best films in the series.

PETER HUNT

(editor, Dr. No)

Terence was extremely instrumental in the whole style of the films. He was extremely encouraging to me in our early style of Dr. No and From Russia With Love, and one cannot underestimate the personality of Terence that was interjected into the character of James Bond and Sean Connery’s playing of it in the early films. There’s no doubt about it, and he was the right man for the job at the time; a very good filmmaker.

RICHARD MAIBAUM

I think Terence is not a meticulous director, but he’s an inspired one at times. Although there are things in his pictures that are even sloppy, still, I think he’s almost the best that we’ve had in doing the romantic scenes. I don’t think he’s been given all the credit that he deserves, especially not these days, where it’s a long time ago.

DAVID V. PICKER

Had he been some years younger, Terence could have played James Bond. Years after I left UA, I produced a film directed by Terence. Terence dressed from Savile Row. Terence ate at Les Ambassadeurs, the poshest place in London. If he had money, he spent it. If he didn’t have any, he spent it. If he saw a beautiful woman, he went after her, but with class and style. And that’s what Sean needed to become James Bond. He needed Terence Young, and that’s who he got.

Young came to the project already knowing both Cubby Broccoli and Ian Fleming, which helped in no small way in terms of his comfort level.

TERENCE YOUNG

I knew Ian, but I didn’t particularly like him. We became, eventually, enormously good friends, but I thought he was a pompous son of a bitch, immensely arrogant, and when we saw him after I’d been signed to do the picture at some big press show put on by United Artists, he said, “So they’ve decided on you to fuck up my work.” I said, “Well, let me put it this way, Ian. I don’t think anything you’ve written is immortal as yet, whereas the last picture I made won the Grand Prix at Venice. Now let’s start level.” He said, “My, you’re a prickly guy, aren’t you?” and I said, “Yes, I am, now let’s go and have dinner.” We left the party and went off and had dinner. Ian was a charmer once you got to know him. He was one of the most delightful people I ever met.

One of Young’s first challenges, according to the director, was the screenplay itself, which wasn’t close to being ready to shoot.

TERENCE YOUNG

We had, at one time, I believe, five different scripts on Dr. No, including one in which Dr. No was a monkey. It was the craziest thing, and finally Cubby Broccoli nearly killed Harry. I mean physically. He got in a rage, and Cubby’s a very quiet, tranquil man, but by God he was inflamed, and he said, “Look, we’ve paid all this fucking money for this James Bond book and we’re not using a word of it. Now, Terence is a writer; he’s the quickest writer I know. He’s got ten days to put it back; he can take all the scripts we have and collect them, and whatever he writes we’re going to be stuck with, and Harry, if it’s bad, it’s your fault.” He blamed Harry, because Harry was in charge of the script. Cubby was doing other things. That’s how this girl, Johanna Harwood, who was my continuity girl on a previous picture, got in it with me. We took a room at the Dorchester Hotel, and we worked day and night. I used to give her things to write, like I’d say, “James Bond comes out of this, gets in the car, and drives off. Just put it in, wearing this…”, and I’d go on writing another scene with dialogue. She did that and she did it very well.

RAY MORTON

Johanna Harwood was the first screenwriter of the Eon Bond movies. She penned the original treatment for Dr. No—by her own account, a very straightforward adaptation of the novel—which was used to get things rolling, but was apparently discarded by Maibaum and Mankowitz when they came on board. She was also the final screenwriter on the movie, doing a final edit and polish on the script in conjunction with director Terence Young just prior to the commencement of principal photography. So she was responsible for the final shape of the narrative and also contributed the great visual gag showing the recently stolen Portrait of the Duke of Wellington by Goya in Doctor No’s lair, suggesting that No was responsible for its theft.

With the script being finalized and Young signed as director, the most important challenge was finding an actor who could bring James Bond to life. While the initial instinct may have been to cast a “name,” Broccoli and Saltzman strongly believed that 007 needed to be played by an unknown for two significant reasons: they wouldn’t be bringing the baggage of other roles to this film, and, more importantly, an established star likely wouldn’t sign for multiple films and would be too expensive. The answer ultimately came in the form of Sean Connery.

TERENCE YOUNG

I first meet Sean in 1957 when I was making Action of the Tiger, which starred Van Johnson and Martine Carol. He was a rough diamond, but already he had a sort of animal force. Like a younger Burt Lancaster or Kirk Douglas. The interesting thing is that Martine Carol, who was a very famous French actress at the time, said, “This boy should be playing the lead instead of Van Johnson. This man has big star quality.”

ROBERT SELLERS

(author, The Battle For Bond)

My feelings are that Connery wanted the role, but the hesitancy came from having to sign another long-term contract. And as we know, by his third or fourth Bond film this became a bone of contention between the actor and the producers.

DAVID V. PICKER

Names started to filter back to us from London. Patrick McGoohan was mentioned. Then a bright young actor named Robert Shaw. Finally, Harry Saltzman called me from London to say he was coming to New York with some film and stills on their choice. His name was Sean Connery. He was a Scotsman. The clips Harry brought were from two films Connery had made for American companies, Darby O’Gill and the Little People for Disney, and Another Time, Another Place for Paramount, both in small roles. I saw the clips. He was attractive. He had what I thought was an Irish accent in Darby O’Gill, and in the film with Lana Turner, he sounded more English. I was neither over-or underwhelmed. I asked Harry if he was the best he could find, and his answer was, “He’s the richest man in the poor house.” “If he’s the best you can find, then let’s go with him.” It was as simple as that. The deal for Connery’s services was made by Harry and Cubby with Richard Hatton, an agent I’d found in previous dealings to be most approachable and fair.

ROBERT SELLERS

Connery’s mistrust of long-term contracts was as a result of his misuse at the hands of 20th Century Fox when they signed him up in the ’50s. There he was made to feel like a piece of meat, loaned out to other studios for his bosses to make money. It was a situation that influenced how Connery would always feel about studios and producers and the reason why he carved out a career for himself suing them. Connery also had the recent example of his British contemporary Albert Finney, who had rejected the role of Lawrence of Arabia because he didn’t want to sign a five-picture deal with its producer, Sam Spiegel. This might also have crossed Connery’s mind as he debated whether to sign on the dotted line to play Bond. Is this part worth all the shit I’m going to get?

STANLEY SOPEL

(associate producer, Dr. No)

I think they always knew from Day One that Sean Connery was going to play James Bond. He was recommended by a lady journalist who worked for the Daily Express. We saw him—he didn’t look like anybody’s idea of Bond when we first saw him—but there was something there, and Harry and Cubby were pretty certain this was the man they wanted. We did go through the motions of screen-testing some fifteen or twenty hopefuls of everybody’s idea of what Commander Bond should look like: 6′2″, British uppercrust, with the sort of chiseled face. Had a genius come out of that testing, Sean probably wouldn’t have gotten the part, but he was it from the beginning.

JOHN CORK

(author, James Bond: The Legacy)

The first thing to understand about the cinematic James Bond is that Sean Connery was perfect for the role. He wasn’t simply good. He was John Wayne in Stagecoach. He was Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest. He was Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes. Everything Connery brought to the role was right.

ROBERT SELLERS

When Sean was cast, people said that was terrible casting. Why are you casting a Scottish truck driver as an Eton-educated English spy? They thought the choice was terrible. But, of course, it was the perfect choice, because to some extent, the Sean Connery film Bond is not the Fleming Bond. He’s not the Bond of the novels. He’s a different animal altogether.

TERENCE YOUNG

Sean has always hated the press, because they were very snide when he first got the job. They kept saying, “Mr. Connery, would you call yourself an Old Etonian? How did your training driving a milk truck prepare you for this picture?” They were very, very cruel when he started, and Sean from that day on never wanted to have anything to do with the press. I remember when we were doing Thunderball, people were saying, “Now that he’s important, he won’t do any press interviews”—I used to have to twist his wrist to get him to go see the press—and people would say, “Why is he being so unpleasant?” I said, “He’s not unpleasant, you were. You started it. After all, Sean’s never changed. He’s been like this all the time and you’re the people that provoked him. You tried to make a monkey out of him and now he doesn’t need you.”

BOB SIMMONS

(stunt arranger, Dr. No)

I used to work with Sean very carefully. He used to say, “What do I do, and what do you do for me?” As the film was progressing, I’d say to Sean, “I want you to come and look at this sequence; I’ll show you something.” He’d say, “Okay, let’s work on it.” Sean would be on the set until ten o’clock at night; we’d stay there on the set with just the house lights on, when everybody else had gone. Just the night watchman was there. Sean was so keen; so good.

TERENCE YOUNG

Sean caught on very quickly. I actually took him to Jamaica a week or two before the picture started and we played a little golf. I taught Sean to play golf, actually, and now he can kick the hell out of me, because he’s very good. He’d never played before and he didn’t like the game; he just went round with me a couple of times. Then when he was doing Goldfinger, he had to learn to play properly and he became an absolute golf nut. He’s probably the craziest golf enthusiast I’ve ever met. So Sean came and spent a few days in Jamaica. He’s a very shrewd person—he’s not clever, he’s intelligent. In one week he got the whole thing summed up, how he was going to play Bond, how he was going to look and all that. He’s a very quick study, believe me.

STEVEN E. DE SOUZA

(screenwriter, Die Hard)

I knew Connery from Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure, where he was, essentially, Red Grant to Gordon Scott’s almost Bondian Tarzan. Because I had read the novel after I already knew the movie was in the pipeline, I visualized Connery from the very first chapter. In my humble opinion, after him, Timothy Dalton came the closest in appearance to the character described in the books and is tied with Daniel Craig and Connery’s first three outings in bringing Bond to plausible life as a living, breathing character.

ROBERT SELLERS

I think Connery was hired for the same reason Fleming and McClory wanted someone like Richard Burton to play Bond in their movie: They could see that if Bond on-screen was played by, let’s say, a David Niven-type English actor, it just wouldn’t have worked. By the time the Bond films came to be made, there had been a revolution in screen acting, instigated in America with the method and actors like Marlon Brando and James Dean. That style of acting, blue collar acting if you like, didn’t permeate into England for quite a few years.

British film and theater remained the preserve of the middle classes, with about as much dynamism as a slab of pork luncheon meat. There was no virility in British acting at all. Then along came the “kitchen sink” actors who all hailed from the working class, Michael Caine, Albert Finney, Richard Harris, etc., and of course Sean Connery. These actors were macho, virile, uncompromising, their heroes were Bob Mitchum, not Laurence Olivier. In other words, had Bond been played by a middle-class actor, a Dirk Bogarde type, it would have been a gigantic turn off, especially with American audiences. I think Richard Maibaum said it best when he was asked why Connery worked so well; it was the fact that the producers cast an actor who looked like he was a truck driver, but gave him all the attributes of an English establishment figure, and it was this clash of cultures that made Connery’s Bond so fascinating. He was a brute in a Savile Row suit. Daniel Craig has exactly the same appeal.

RONALD D. MOORE

(cowriter, Mission Impossible II)

Sean Connery and Dr. No is where it all begins with me. I return to that movie over and over again in my love of the Bond franchise. I kind of came to it a little late; I wasn’t the dyed-in-the-wool Bond fan from an early age. I didn’t discover it until high school in the late ’70s or early ’80s. We had a Betamax and I was madly recording things on network television, and one of them was Dr. No. I recorded it from network television and watched it over and over again.

FRED DEKKER

(cowriter, The Predator)

Connery was supremely confident. I realize this is what makes a great movie star. If you look back at Steve McQueen or Clint Eastwood or any of those guys, they exude confidence and there’s something magical about that for a schmoe like me going into the movies and wanting to be that.

STEVEN E. DE SOUZA

That moment when he introduced himself in the casino as “Bond, James Bond”—it struck me as simple and classic and, as I was a precocious film buff even at thirteen, an echo of the introduction to Rick Blaine in Casablanca.

LISA FUNNELL

(author, For His Eyes Only: The Women of James Bond)

To me, this is one the greatest cinematic introductions. Our first encounter with Bond is through his hands as his face is obscured. We observe his keen sense of touch as he defeats his opponent with ease at the card table. Only when Sylvia Trench asks for his name do we get a shot of Connery, who looks dapper in his tuxedo while smoking a cigarette, and delivers the classic line, “Bond, James Bond.” This moment is iconic and many people on screen and in person have mimicked this mode of personal introduction!

SEAN CONNERY

(actor, “James Bond”)

In the beginning, there was one kind of Bond very well known to many people who read the books and had a very definite opinion. For instance, the lock of hair that would fall forward, the blue eyes, cruel to some, sadistic to others, and an athlete. Just many dimensions. That sort of success was there before I even touched it, or even read any of the books. Then when I became involved with the film, I felt that there was a lack of humor about it. Within a year I became quite friendly with Ian Fleming, and what I admired more than anything else about him was his curiosity about everything. When I mentioned the business of humor, he was quite surprised, because he felt he was quite humorous. He was, as a man, humorous, but in writing the character, he wasn’t.

JOHN CORK

Connery was the closest to Fleming’s Bond by a wide margin. It is the Connery of Dr. No and From Russia With Love who is Fleming’s Bond; the Connery who stays out too late at a casino, who has flashes of real anger, who has genuine distaste for the senseless deaths that are too often part of the job. Because the last three Bond novels were written after Connery was cast as 007, Fleming made minor concessions to Connery’s Bond. He gave 007 a Scottish background for example. But just as importantly, Terence Young was devoted to transforming Fleming’s Bond into a cinematic character. That involved some changes, but Young and Connery capture the elegance, humor, irony, and brutality of Fleming’s writing with Connery’s performance.

LISA FUNNELL

Connery was an interesting choice for the part. Ian Fleming wanted to cast David Niven in the title role, but Albert R. Broccoli wanted Bond to convey a more mid-Atlantic image with less jarring English mannerisms in order to appeal to the American market. Connery was certainly able to achieve this. However, my primary issue with Connery’s Bond is the way in which he interacts, often violently, with women. He manhandles them (like when he tells Honey Ryder leave the island and pulls her toward her boat) and his sexual encounters are often coercive and devoid of consent (as in the case of Miss Taro, who clearly doesn’t want to sleep with Bond but is coerced). If the character of Bond stems from the British lover literary tradition, then why does he need to use force to get women to comply with his wishes? For me, this detracts from his heroism. In fact, my students describe Connery’s Bond as being “rapey” and I find this to be extremely problematic.

TERENCE YOUNG

People have said I put a lot of myself into Bond. I sent Sean to my shirtmaker, I took him to my tailor, I used to make him go out in these clothes, because Sean’s idea of a good evening out would be to go out in a lumber jacket. One thing, in fact—and I don’t know whether one should talk about this—Sean is not a very polite eater. In Dr. No, in that scene in the dining room, Sean sits down and they have dinner. I kept saying, “Sean, you’ve got to eat with your mouth closed,” and he kept saying, “Well, I can’t breathe if I do that!” So I changed the thing and we brought in the champagne and Sean had a little bit of one-upmanship by saying, “Ah, the 1951; I prefer the 1952,” or something like that. Of course, by the time we did Thunderball, Sean was James Bond as no one else will ever be.

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Lists / What's New

Six Books We Can’t Wait to Read in 2020

December 20, 2019May 3, 2024admin

By Alison Bunis

How’s your 2020 to-read list looking? Nice and neat, every book listed in the order you want to read them? You know exactly what books you’ll be reading when for all of 2020, right? It’s almost January, everything should be all planned out…Yeah, no one does that. Not even the Forge team, and we’re pretty big book nerds here. Even if you tried to make a list like that, it can be so hard to stick to, because sometimes you see a book that you just have to read this very second. We get it.

But we do like to know what great stuff we can look forward to reading in the upcoming year, and we figured you might, too. So here’s a list of six of the great books coming out from Forge this year! Put them on your (disorganized, not-in-any-particular-order) to-read list now!

opens in a new windowNobody Does It Better by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross (2/11/20)

opens in a new windowFor over five decades, the cinematic adventures of James Bond have thrilled moviegoers. Now, bestselling authors Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross take you behind-the-scenes of the most famous and beloved movie franchise of all-time filled with reflections from over 150 cast, crew, critics and filmmakers who reflect on the impact of this legendary movie franchise as well as share their thoughts about their favorite (and least favorite) 007 adventures and spy mania which gripped fans the world over in the wake of the success of the James Bond films. Get your martini glasses out, and get ready to learn the incredible, uncensored true stories of the James Bond franchise, from the birth of Bond through the latest adventures. Don’t worry—since Nobody Does it Better is hitting shelves on February 11th, there’s plenty of time to read it before No Time to Die comes out in April!.

opens in a new windowCrash by David Hagberg and Lawrence Light (4/28/20)

opens in a new windowWhether you’re a financial junkie or have never gotten closer to the stock market than watching Wall Street, Crash will strike a chord with everyone who remembers the 2008 financial crisis. Much like in our reality, the world’s economies are groaning under too much debt. If one thing goes wrong, the entire rickety system collapses. In Crash, with debt-burdened governments and businesses worldwide about to go bust, a cabal of Wall Street big shots plot to provide that one thing that goes wrong. In 24 hours, a powerful computer worm will smash the exchanges and spark an international panic. The Wall Street gang’s investment bank will be the last one standing, able to make a killing amid the ruins.But when one of the bank’s computer experts, Cassy Levin, spots the worm, she invents a program to destroy it, and her bosses have her kidnapped. When Cassy disappears, her boyfriend Ben Whalen, a former Navy SEAL, starts looking for her, and ends up stumbling onto the entire plot. Now Ben only has one day to save the woman he loves and prevent a global economic collapse like we’ve never seen before.

The Nemesis Manifesto by Eric Van Lustbader (5/19/20)

opens in a new windowGet excited for a new series from Eric Van Lustbader, packed with Russian meddling, American fragmentation, global politics, and the adventures of singular new hero Evan Ryder. Evan is a lone wolf, a field agent for a black-ops arm of the DOD, who has survived unspeakable tragedy and dedicated her life to protecting her country. When her fellow agents begin to be systematically eliminated, Evan must unravel the thread that ties them all together…before her name comes up on the kill list.

The list belongs to a mysterious cabal known only as Nemesis, a hostile entity hell-bent on tearing the United States apart. As Evan tracks them from Washington D.C. to the Caucasus Mountains, from Austria to a fortress in Germany where her own demons reside, she unearths a network of conspirators far more complex than anyone could have imagined. Can Evan uproot them before Nemesis forces bring democracy to its knees?

opens in a new windowDeath Rattle by Alex Gilly (7/14/20)

opens in a new windowWhen Carmen de la Vega’s boyfriend tries to kill her, she hands over all her savings to a smuggler and sets out from Tijuana in a small, leaky boat. Within sight of the California coast, the boat starts to sink, and its passengers have to be rescued by border patrol. Soon after, Carmen turns up dead in a privately-operated Migrant Detention Center. Neither Nick Finn, the officer who saved Carmen from drowning, or his wife, human-rights lawyer Mona Jimenez, are satisfied with the prison’s account of what happened to Carmen. Trouble is, the company that runs the prison is on the verge of signing a billion-dollar procurement contract with Homeland Security. And there are people in this world for whom a billion dollars is worth a whole lot more than one human life. Or even three.

opens in a new windowSouth of the Buttonwood Tree by Heather Webber (7/21/20)

opens in a new windowIf you were enchanted by Heather Webber’s Midnight at the Blackbird Café, then boy do we have good news for you: she’s got a brand new book this July, filled with just as much warmth, magic, and charm as her first. This time, we meet Blue Bishop, a town outcast who has a knack for finding lost things. While growing up in charming small-town Buttonwood, Alabama, she’s happened across lost wallets, jewelry, pets, her wandering neighbor, and sometimes, trouble. No one is more surprised than Blue, however, when she comes across an abandoned newborn baby in the woods, just south of a very special buttonwood tree.

Meanwhile, Sarah Grace Landreneau Fulton is at a crossroads. She has always tried so hard to do the right thing, but her own mother would disown her if she ever learned half of Sarah Grace’s secrets.

The unexpected discovery of the newborn baby girl will alter Blue’s and Sarah Grace’s lives forever. Both women must fight for what they truly want in life and for who they love. In doing so, they uncover long-held secrets that reveal exactly who they really are—and what they’re willing to sacrifice in the name of family.

opens in a new windowAn Irish Country Welcome by Patrick Taylor (10/06/20)

opens in a new windowIn the close-knit Northern Irish village of Ballybucklebo, it’s said that a new baby brings its own welcome. Young doctor Barry Laverty and his wife Sue are anxiously awaiting their first child, but as the community itself prepares to welcome a new decade, the closing months of 1969 bring more than a televised moon landing to Barry, his friends, his neighbors, and his patients, including a number of sticky questions.

A fledgling doctor joins the practice as a trainee, but will the very upper-class Sebastian Carson be a good fit for the rough and tumble of Irish country life? And as sectarian tensions rise elsewhere in Ulster, can a Protestant man marry the Catholic woman he dearly loves, despite his father’s opposition? And who exactly is going to win the award for the best dandelion wine at this year’s Harvest Festival?

New Releases

New Releases: 8/21/18

August 21, 2018May 2, 2024torforge

Happy New Release Day! Here’s what went on sale today.

opens in a new windowAssassin’s Run by Ward Larsen

opens in a new window Ward Larsen’s Assassin’s Run revives globe-trotting, hard-hitting assassin David Slaton for another breathless adventure. When a Russian oligarch is killed by a single bullet on his yacht off the Isle of Capri, Russian intelligence sources speculate that a legendary Israeli assassin, long thought dead, might be responsible. However, David Slaton—the assassin in question—is innocent. Realizing the only way to clear his name is to find out who’s truly responsible, he travels to Capri.

opens in a new windowThe Fated Sky by Mary Robinette Kowal

opens in a new window Mary Robinette Kowal continues the grand sweep of alternate history begun in The Calculating Stars, The Fated Sky looks forward to 1961, when mankind is well-established on the moon and looking forward to its next step: journeying to, and eventually colonizing, Mars.

Of course the noted Lady Astronaut Elma York would like to go, but there’s a lot riding on whoever the International Aerospace Coalition decides to send on this historic—but potentially very dangerous—mission?

opens in a new windowSo Say We All: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Battlestar Galactica by Edward Gross & Mark A. Altman

opens in a new window Four decades after its groundbreaking debut, Battlestar Galactica — both the 1978 original and its 2004 reimagining ? have captured the hearts of two generations of fans. What began as a three-hour made for TV movie inspired by the blockbuster success of Star Wars followed by a single season of legendary episodes, was transformed into one of the most critically acclaimed and beloved series in television history. And gathered exclusively in this volume are the incredible untold stories of both shows – as well as the much-maligned Galactica 1980.

opens in a new windowThe Stars Now Unclaimed by Drew Williams

opens in a new window Think big guns, smugglers, epic space battles, and a telekinetic girl with all the gifts.

Jane Kamali is an agent for the Justified. Her mission: to recruit children with miraculous gifts in the hope that they might prevent the pulse from once again sending countless worlds back to the dark ages.

Hot on her trail is the Pax—a collection of fascist zealots who believe they are the rightful rulers of the galaxy and who remain untouched by the pulse.

NEW IN PAPERBACK

opens in a new windowInvisible Planets ed. by Ken Liu

opens in a new window Science fiction readers the world over have recently become familiar with Ken Liu’s Chinese translation work via The Three-Body Problem, the bestselling and Hugo award-winning novel by acclaimed Chinese author Cixin Liu. Ken Liu has now assembled, translated, and edited an anthology of Chinese science fiction stories, the most comprehensive collection yet available in the English language, sure to thrill and gratify readers developing a taste and excitement for Chinese SF.

opens in a new windowJudgment at Appomattox by Ralph Peters

opens in a new window Written with the literary flair and historical accuracy readers expect from Ralph Peters, Judgment at Appomattoxtakes readers through the Civil War’s last grim interludes of combat as flags fall and hearts break.

A great war nears its end. Robert E. Lee makes a desperate, dramatic gamble that fails. Richmond falls. Each day brings new combat and more casualties, as Lee’s exhausted, hungry troops race to preserve the Confederacy. But Grant does not intend to let Lee escape. . . . In one of the most thrilling episodes in American history, heroes North and South battle each other across southern Virginia as the armies converge on a sleepy country court house.

NEW FROM TOR.COM

opens in a new windowThe Black God’s Drums by P. Djèlí Clark

opens in a new window In an alternate New Orleans caught in the tangle of the American Civil War, the wall-scaling girl named Creeper yearns to escape the streets for the air – in particular, by earning a spot on-board the airship Midnight Robber. Creeper plans to earn Captain Ann-Marie’s trust with information she discovers about a Haitian scientist and a mysterious weapon he calls The Black God’s Drums.

But Creeper also has a secret herself: Oya, the African orisha of the wind and storms, speaks inside her head, and may have her own ulterior motivations.

NEW IN MANGA

opens in a new windowAkashic Records of Bastard Magic Instructor Vol. 4 Story by Hitsuji Tarou; Art by Tsunemi Aosa

opens in a new windowArpeggio of Blue Steel Vol. 13 Story and art by Ark Performance

opens in a new windowSaint Seiya: Saintia Shō Vol. 3 Story by Masami Kurumada; Art by Chimaki Kuori

New Releases / What's New

New Releases: 9/26/17

September 26, 2017May 2, 2024torforge

Happy New Release Day! Here’s what went on sale today.

opens in a new windowEnder’s Game by Orson Scott Card

opens in a new window For the perfect holiday gift for the reader on your list, pick up Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game in this specially bound edition of the author’s preferred text.

Andrew “Ender” Wiggin thinks he is playing computer simulated war games at the Battle School; he is, in fact, engaged in something far more desperate. Ender is the most talented result of Earth’s desperate quest to create the military genius that the planet needs in its all-out war with an alien enemy.

opens in a new windowHorizon by Fran Wilde

opens in a new window A City of living bone towers crumbles to the ground and danger abounds. Kirit Densira has lost everything she loved the most—her mother, her home, and the skies above. Nat Brokenwings—once Kirit’s brother long before the rebellion tore them apart—is still trying to save his family in the face of catastrophe. They will need to band together once more to ensure not just their own survival, but that of their entire community.

opens in a new windowSlayers and Vampires: The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy & Angel by Edward Gross & Mark A. Altman

opens in a new window Two decades after its groundbreaking debut, millions of fans worldwide remain enthralled with the incredible exploits of Joss Whedon’s Buffy Summers, the slayer and feminist icon who saved the world…a lot; as well as Angel, the tortured vampire with a soul who fought against the apocalyptic forces of evil.

opens in a new windowWar and Craft by Tom Doyle

opens in a new window America, land of the Free…and home of the warlocks.

The Founding Fathers were never ones to pass up a good weapon. America’s first line of defense has been shrouded in secrecy, magical families who have sworn to use their power to protect our republic.

NEW FROM TOR.COM:

opens in a new windowThe Black Tides of Heaven by JY Yang

opens in a new window Mokoya and Akeha, the twin children of the Protector, were sold to the Grand Monastery as infants. While Mokoya developed her strange prophetic gift, Akeha was always the one who could see the strings that moved adults to action. While Mokoya received visions of what would be, Akeha realized what could be. What’s more, they saw the sickness at the heart of their mother’s Protectorate.

opens in a new windowThe Red Threads of Fortune by JY Yang

opens in a new window Fallen prophet, master of the elements, and daughter of the supreme Protector, Sanao Mokoya has abandoned the life that once bound her. Once her visions shaped the lives of citizens across the land, but no matter what tragedy Mokoya foresaw, she could never reshape the future. Broken by the loss of her young daughter, she now hunts deadly, sky-obscuring naga in the harsh outer reaches of the kingdom with packs of dinosaurs at her side, far from everything she used to love.

NEW IN MANGA:

opens in a new window12 Beast Vol. 5 Story and art by OKAYADO

opens in a new windowMiss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid Vol. 4 Story and art by Coolkyoushinja

opens in a new windowOtome Mania!! Vol. 2 Story and art by Yurino Tsukigase

opens in a new windowSpecies Domain Vol. 3 Story and art by Noro Shunsuke

opens in a new windowThe Testament of Sister New Devil Storm! Vol. 1 Story by Tetsuto Uesu; Art by Fumihiro Kiso

Author Features

Vampires and Slayers

September 5, 2017November 1, 2017torforge6 Comments

opens in a new windowWritten by opens in a new windowEdward Gross and opens in a new windowMark A. Altman

While writing the upcoming oral history of Buffy and Angel, Slayers & Vampires, we had the chance to spend many months with our favorite slayers and vampires from the Whedon-verse. But long before anyone had ever heard of Sunnydale High, there were many others who stalked and slayed in the night, and here are some of our favorites. (Buffy and Angel favorites excluded, including Faith, Kendra, The Master and Jonathan, The Vampire Slayer. That just wouldn’t be fair. Plus when we picked Angel over Spike, the hate mail from the alt-Spike would never stop.)

Vampires

Dracula: The legendary Bram Stoker character has been played by more actors over the years than James Bond but from Bela Lugosi to Christopher Lee to Frank Langella, there wasn’t a Timothy Dalton in the bunch.
Lestat: Anne Rice’s iconic creation was one of the most nuanced and compelling dentally challenged antagonists of all time. His story made the Vampire Chronicles essential reading for millions of fans.
Miriam Blalock: Catherine Deneuve’s beautiful and stylish vamp in The Hunger. She even had David Bowie as her paramour, making her even cooler. After his untimely death, she fell in love with Susan Sarandon and we did too.
Graf Orlok Nosferatu: When F.W. Murnau couldn’t acquire the film rights to Stoker’s Van Helsing, he created his own legendary vampire instead, the chilling, folically challenged and downright creepy Graf Orlok Nosferatu who could stand for a day in the salon. The oldest, and still scariest, film on our list.
Jesse Hooker: Lance Henriksen’s bad-ass vampire Jesse Hooker, in Kathryn Bigelow’s Near Dark, helped usher in the age of the postmodern vampire film along with films like Lost Boys, Fright Night and the aforementioned The Hunger.

Slayers

Carl Kolchak: Long before there was The X-Files, there was Darren McGavin as Carl Kolchak in The Night Stalker. As journalists ourselves we have to admit that we’re partial to sarcastic, wise-cracking wordsmiths who chronicle and kill vampires and other beasties that go bump in the night with equal aplomb.
Robert Neville: Richard Matheson’s Robert Neville from his 1954 novel I Am Legend has never been more deadly than as played by a scenery chewing Charlton Heston in The Omega Man as he goes up against Anthony Zerbe and his band of bad-ass zombie vamps in this post-apocalyptic horror (later remade with Will Smith as I Am Legend by director Francis Lawrence). We’ll enjoy this 1971 guilty pleasure until you pull the Blu-Ray from our cold, dead hands.
Blade: The Marvel Comics anti-hero, the Daywalker, a half human/half vampire and all badass hunts his fellow vamps and the vicious Deacon Frost with brutal efficiency. Played by Wesley Snipes in the classic trilogy and ripe for a remake.
The Frog Brothers: You can’t beat the Coreys. In The Lost Boys, Edgar and Allan Frog realize their destiny to rid Santa Carla, California from a pack of bloodsuckers only to face eternal damnation on the way. Carry on, Coreys…
Peter Vincent: As the long-suffering nighttime horror host, Peter Vincent, Roddy McDowall goes mano a mano with Chris Sarandon in the ultimate Fright Night.

Mark A. Altman ( opens in a new window@markaaltman) is the co-author of Tor Books’ upcoming Slayers & Vampires: The Complete Oral History of Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel. He is a writer/producer who is a former Co-EP of such series as The Librarians, Agent X, Castle and many others. His films include Free Enterprise, The Thirst, DOA: Dead Or Alive and his directorial debut, the upcoming romantic comedy, Can’t Have You.

Edward Gross ( opens in a new window@edgross) is a journalist for such publications and websites as Empire, Geek and FHM. He is co-author of Slayers & Vampires and last year’s The Fifty-Year Mission, an oral history of Star Trek, he wrote with Altman.

Order Your Copy

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Excerpts

Excerpt: Slayers and Vampires by Mark A. Altman and Edward Gross

August 25, 2017May 13, 2024torforge

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Two decades after its groundbreaking debut, millions of fans worldwide remain enthralled with the incredible exploits of Joss Whedon’s Buffy Summers, the slayer and feminist icon who saved the world…a lot; as well as Angel, the tortured vampire with a soul who fought against the apocalyptic forces of evil.

Now, go behind-the-scenes of these legendary series that ushered in the new Golden Age of Television, with the candid recollections of writers, creators, executives, programmers, critics and cast members. Together they unveil the oftentimes shocking true story of how a failed motion picture became an acclaimed cult television series, how that show became a pawn between two networks, and the spin-off series that was as engaging as everything that came before.

This is the amazing true story of Buffy and the friends, vampires, slayers, and demons who changed television forever.

opens in a new windowSlayers and Vampires: The Complete, Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy The Vampire Slayer & Angel will become available September 26th. Please enjoy this excerpt.

ONCE MORE, WITH KNEALING

By Mark A. Altman

“She’s cool. She’s hot. She’s tepid. She’s all-temperature Buffy.”

Make no mistake, Joss Whedon is a god.

Not a Zeus-like god who hurls thunderbolts from the sky and demands sacrifices of goats, chickens, geese, and the occasional vestal virgin, but an honest-to-goodness writing deity, a wizard of words, a maestro of the macabre and liege of letters. Not to mention he’s far more partial to plaid button-downs than togas. But, not unlike Vargas on the receiving end of a spear gun from 007, you get the point (or Mr. Pointy, in his case). If that fact got lost on us during his less-than-halcyon days, when Whedon wrote for the mouthy Roseanne and Dan, resurrected Alien, or even when he debuted the first Buffy, who failed to slay audiences on movie screens in 1992, by now it should be abundantly clear to those of us fortunate enough to have been hip to the oeuvre of Joss Whedon, this is a man of boundless creativity, thoughtfulness, passion, intelligence, and wit.

Are you not entertained?

In a medium and a genre in which sexy blond girls were cannon fodder for the creepy-crawlies that go bump . . . and slash . . . in the night, Whedon flipped the script. Instead of being the prey, the lithe little blond girl with the silly name was the predator, keeping the troubled town of Sunnydale safe from all manner of nefarious and apocalyptic threats to her friends and family, from points north, west, south, and east. It’s been said before but it’s worth reiterating that Buffy didn’t take place in the high school world of a John Hughes comedy, it used its supernatural trappings as a metaphor for the challenges and pain of adolescence. Not many of us could relate to growing up in a small town terrorized by soulless vampires, goblins, and ghouls, but most can relate to stories of unrequited love (or lust), sexy and soulful mysterious strangers, insular high school cliques, and cheerleaders whose bodies are possessed by their obsessed mothers. OK, not so much that last one.

High school drama had come a long way since Glenn Ford in The Blackboard Jungle. And what makes Buffy so unique is that it stands as perhaps one of the last vestiges of a more innocent age of adolescence, before social media and iPhones. When Buffy was created, it was still the era of creaking plot mechanics that could hinge on a missed ring on the landline phone, and in which the only social network in a town like Sunnydale was hanging out at a place like the Bronze while listening to music from a procession of great to middling ’90s bands. Buffy was delivering its swan song to the more innocent days of high school just as the first glimmers of social networking were arriving on the scene with Friendster (remember that short-lived precursor to Myspace and Facebook?). Buffy would be a very different show today: the denizens of Sunnydale would be snapchatting and tweeting about Mayors transforming into giant lizard gods and hellish Halloween celebrations. “For god’s sakes, stay away from Ethan’s and lay off the Band Candy.” Is that more than 140 characters?

Meanwhile, Whedon’s spin-off of Buffy, Angel, is a miraculous story of survival against all odds. The series debuted with David Boreanaz’s titular vampire as Philip Marlowe lite attempting to redeem himself on the mean streets of the City of Angels in a ham-fisted, noir-tinged detective drama. Sputtering for nearly half a season, the show began to find its own distinct identity, miraculously and brilliantly reinventing itself several times, first when Cordelia was bequeathed the visions of the late Glenn Quinn’s Doyle, and then when Angel Investigations took up residence in an abandoned art deco hotel, and, finally, when Angel and company would find themselves in charge of the evil law firm Wolfram and Hart. What was stunning was that despite the seemingly inane, high-concept TV Guide description—“Angel, the vampire with a soul, is forced to run an evil law firm in Los Angeles” (redundant, to be sure)—the show’s dramatic reinvention for its fifth season was a home run, and, much like Next Generation’s darker, more brooding spin-off Deep Space Nine, Angel often outshone its progenitor, despite having a smaller audience and receiving far less critical acclaim.

Embracing a more serialized structure than its progenitor, Angel required a more serious commitment from viewers of the pre-DVR age, who would be amply awarded for their loyalty (although I vaguely recall purchasing my first TiVo around that time, and I still have my plush Mr. TiVo to prove it). As Buffy began sputtering to its inevitable conclusion, Angel continued to evolve, culminating in one of the great series finales of all time, a supernatural Godfather denouement, a cliffhanger that is, regrettably, unlikely ever to be resolved. Not since Mike Torello and Ray Luca grappled violently in the cockpit of a rapidly descending Cessna in the second-season capper of Crime Story had a series left you hungering for more as the axe swung.

And since the respective conclusions of Buffy and Angel, Whedon has continued to amass quite the filmography (a subject for another book, surely). He rarely repeats himself and, no matter how disparate the material, marks his work with a singular style and wit. Even without Joss Whedon’s name in the opening credits, it’d be hard to miss his unique imprimatur on such a diverse array of film and television as 2002’s Firefly, the addictive, short-lived cult sci-fi western about a ragtag group of underdogs and misfits long before Guardians of the Galaxy made such things en vogue and 2012’s The Avengers, featuring a distinctly different band of underdogs and misfits who save the world and transformed Whedon from a revered cult figure to a bankable blockbuster film director, all while he knocked out the microbudget adaptation of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing, a charming and delightful retelling of the Bard’s whimsical comedy, which gets a very Whedonesque makeover and was shot in his backyard. He made the film on a shoestring between Hammer time and Hulk busting. Doesn’t this man sleep? Apparently not.

Meanwhile, there was the far less successful Eliza Dushku vehicle for Fox, Dollhouse; the genre-subverting The Cabin in the Woods, directed by Buffy veteran and future Martian Oscar nominee Drew Goddard, which Whedon and Goddard cooked up in a matter of days and that harkens back to horror classics like Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead but has a distinctly Whedonesque spin; and the beloved Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog, with the always delightful Nathan Fillion as the preening, narcissistic superhero Captain Hammer, a dastardly and lovestruck Neil Patrick Harris as Dr. Horrible, and an adorable Felicia Day. (And I would know since I’ve been lucky enough to work with both of them, the awesome and avuncular Nathan on Castle and Felicia on The Librarians, where we played hours of Lord of the Rings pinball with Sean Astin, but that’s a story for another time.)

As a television writer myself, it’s hard not to appreciate Whedon’s sheer talent and prodigious output, which I’ve always enjoyed, respected, and admired. My personal connection to Whedon predates this book by over two decades. When I first moved to Los Angeles and was working as a journalist for Sci-Fi Universe, the self-proclaimed magazine for science fiction fans with a life that I had started for Larry Flynt, of all people, I attended a Writers Guild mixer, where I first encountered Joss, in his ubiquitous and unmistakable uniform of T-shirt, jeans, and button-down plaid shirt. We talked for a while about his new film, Toy Story. He was excited and equally trepidatious about the film’s imminent release, Pixar’s first. He’d already become one of Hollywood’s most accomplished go-to guys for script fixes, doing substantial uncredited rewrites from films ranging from l994’s Speed to 1995’s infamous Waterworld which contributed a new twist to the seemingly immutable Hollywood axiom: Never work with kids or animals and definitely never, ever shoot on water. We all know now, of course, that the first Toy Story is a triumph, one of the great animated films of all time, and became a perennial favorite for a generation of children (and adults). But I’ll never forget walking out of the Crest Theatre in Westwood during the opening weekend to find Joss ensconced in the shadows of the back row quietly watching the film—and the audience. Surprised, I approached him and asked what he was doing watching his own film, which he had assuredly seen many times already. Chagrined and embarrassed, a nervous Whedon smiled, answering he didn’t want anyone to recognize him, hoping to anonymously see if the film played with a real, paying audience. Indeed, it did—it was nothing short of a masterpiece. That was the last time I ever saw that side of Joss. Success didn’t make him an egotist or an asshole, as it does for many in our business, but it did make him deservedly self-confident . . . and a better dresser.

After that, I would regularly run into him on Tuesdays at the late Pico Boulevard haunt, Laser Blazer, where we both used to pick up the latest laserdiscs and, later, DVDs and Blu-rays. We would have brief and amiable conversations, but I can’t say I ever got to really know him very well, although we were bonded into that community of pre-Amazon obsessives who would march out to the store every Tuesday to pick up the latest new releases on the day they came out—often leaving them in the original shrink-wrap for years. (As anyone who is still part of the dying breed of connoisseurs of physical media will adamantly and lovingly tell you, sometimes it’s just enough to know they’re there.)

Perhaps my most embarrassing run-in with Joss was years later at the Saturn Awards, the awesomely kitsch, sweet, nostalgic, and charming awards show devoted to genre entertainment held annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy and Horror Films. For years, my wife had been consumed by a question that she desperately wanted answered. Now, you have to understand that my wonderful spouse, Naomi, is a die-hard fan of the Whedonverse and a devoted fan of Buffy and Angel. Not only did we have a string quartet play the beautiful “Sacrifice” theme from “The Gift” at our wedding and name two of our rescue cats Giles and Willow, but for her first Mother’s Day I took her to Torrance to see Sunnydale High School (aka Torrance High School) and the original Summers residence nearby. In fact, when she first moved to Los Angeles, Buffy was a great solace to her since she had left behind so many of her close friends in Chicago, and it was the gang at Sunnydale High that helped her acclimate to her new life in a new city with new friends, not unlike the slayer herself. So you see, even though I ducked having to ask her question for several years, unfortunately, when she heard that Joss was going to be at the Saturns, there was no way I was extricating myself from this unwelcome task. Naomi insisted that I talk to Joss and get a definitive answer to her vexing query.

What did she want to know, you may ask? Not far from where we live in Beverly Hills, there was a three-way intersection; at it stood the Willow School, Wesley Street, and, nestled between them and now long gone, the imposing Angelus Shoe Factory. Naomi thought perhaps this had been an inspiration to Joss when he was creating Buffy. I, of course, thought I’d never eat lunch (dinner or brunch) in this town again if I posed her question, but when your wife asks you do something—other than take out the garbage—you do it and so I did. Mortified, I approached Joss at the after party, and, after exchanging familiar pleasantries and downing a few vodka-enhanced beverages, I finally, reluctantly, asked him if indeed this had been an inspiration for Buffy. Smiling amusedly but taking pity on me by not outright laughing, he answered quietly and thoughtfully, “You can tell your wife, definitely not.” And so ended one of the all-time great, long-held mysteries of Buffy for our family.

Hopefully, however, in this volume you now hold in your hand Ed Gross and I will be able to clarify many other mysteries, dispel some apocryphal myths, hip you to the best craft services, and reintroduce you to the wonderful worlds of Buffy and Angel in a new, candid, and exciting way. The joy of writing these oral histories of such beloved pop culture staples is not only to have a chance to revisit worlds we love (like Star Trek in The Fifty-Year Mission and Sunnydale and Angel’s City of Angels in this volume) and share insider stories with passionate fans about the creation and making of these iconic series but also to showcase the behind-the-scenes tales and many of the unheralded talents of so many of these wonderful shows with those who may have never encountered them before.

At twenty years old, there’s an entire generation of TV viewers who didn’t grow up with Buffy, Willow, Xander, Cordelia, Faith, Angel, Spike, Giles, Willow, Dawn, Flutie, Snyder, Anya, Kendra, Gentlemen, Masters, and Mayors. Once they read this volume, it’s our hope they will. Buffy and Angel are distinctly products of their time. They were created early in the second golden age of television, after the emergence of series like Hill Street Blues and St. Elsewhere changed the medium indelibly forever but before the renaissance of The Sopranos, The Wire, Mad Men, and Breaking Bad. But for as long as girls love boys, kids endure the endless tortures of high school, and we question the myriad sounds that go bump in the night, Buffy and Angel will always remain timeless. The visual effects of Mayor Wilkins turning into a giant snake notwithstanding, of course. Thatdoes look pretty lame now.

October 29, 2016

VAMPIRES and SLAYERS, OH MY!

By Edward Gross

“I may be love’s bitch, but at least I’m man enough to admit it.”

Growing up in the 1960s, I had a number of pop culture obsessions, most of which are still with me, including Superman, James Bond, Star Trek, Planet of the Apes, The Odd Couple (I saw the movie when I was eight and have loved the concept ever since), and vampires.

As to the latter, I was fascinated with the classic Universal and Hammer horror movies, most notably Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee’s takes on Dracula. But that was nothing compared with my genuine obsession with Barnabas Collins, the vampire star of television’s only gothic-horror daily soap opera, Dark Shadows. From the moment I encountered that character one afternoon after school, he’d never fully gone away (a memory solidified by the fact that there was a period in the 1980s when I was hanging out with the man who played him, the late Jonathan Frid).

Strangely, the idea of slayers—those whose chosen path was to take down my beloved vampires, among other supernatural threats—was appealing to me as well. (I don’t even want to get into the psychology of wanting to see the thing I love destroyed.) The first person I recall doing that slaying was the reporter Carl Kolchak, played by Darren McGavin, in the 1972 TV movie The Night Stalker, in which he discovered and took down a vamp haunting Las Vegas. A year later Kolchak returned in The Night Strangler and, a year after that, in the weekly series Kolchak: The Night Stalker. There was also Roy Thinnes in 1973’s The Norliss Tapes TV movie, Gene Roddenberry’s 1977 TV movie Spectre, 1984’s Ghostbusters, the following year’s Fright Night (which introduced audiences to Roddy McDowall’s Peter Vincent), and 1993’s The X-Files (of course).

But then there was Buffy the Vampire Slayer, debuting in 1997, which was an entity all its own, capturing the imagination with horror, humor, and (shockingly) three-dimensional characters as it introduced the world (and me) to Sarah Michelle Gellar’s Buffy Summers and the rest of her particular Scooby Gang. And in that mix came the vampire with a soul, Angel, as played by David Boreanaz.

One TV show with a vampire and a slayer? My mind was boggled, and since I had been a journalist for a great metropolitan newspaper . . . sorry, that was Clark Kent . . . that is, for a number of magazines, I was given an inside look at the making of the series and also of the spin-off, Angel.

But even before there was a Buffy TV show, there was Joss Whedon. Back in 1995, I was an editor at Cinescape magazine, and it was announced that a fourth movie in the Alien franchise, ultimately called Alien: Resurrection, was going to be made (really big news at the time) and that someone named Joss Whedon would be writing it. Well, back then, before every bit of information about a film fell under the full and complete control of studio publicists or the talent involved was terrified of speaking out of turn, I figured there couldn’t be too many people named Joss Whedon out there, so I called 411, information. A moment later, I had a phone number and decided to give it a call. Joss answered, I introduced myself, and we stayed on the phone for about an hour or so, engaging in what would be the first of many hours of conversation over the years. Eventually, when Buffy did become a TV series, Joss continued to make himself available to me, and he even made it possible for me to speak to many of the other writer/producers of both series. As a result, next to Star Trek, I don’t think there were any other TV shows that I covered as much as I did Buffy and Angel.

This book, then, is the culmination of my lifelong obsession with both vampires and slayers. In telling the story of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel, particularly in the oral history format, it was our hope that this would be the most in depth and intimate look at two shows that, whether people realized it or not, evolved the medium. A lot.

December 31, 2016

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