From Sainthood To Knighthood

THE life of the late Sir Roger Moore makes for fascinating reading.

- Mark Wasserman

WITH the passing of Sir Roger Moore, the British star who brought tongue-in-cheek humor to the role of James Bond in seven films, the world of show business lost an aspect of colour. He died on May 23 at the age of 89.

The death, attributed to cancer, was confirmed in a family statement on Twitter.

Roger Moore was born on October 14, 1927 in Stockwell, London, the only child of George Moore, a policeman, and Lillian Pope.

He attended Battersea Grammar School, but was evacuated to Holsworthy, Devon during the Second World War, and attended Launceston College. Moore apprenticed at an animation studio but was fired after he made a mistake with some animation cells. He got his ‘big break’, though, when his father investigated a robbery at the home of film director Brian Desmond Hurst, which led to Moore’s being introduced to the director and hired as an extra for the 1945 film Caesar And Cleopatra. He was set, unwittingly, on the path to worldwide fame.

While there, Moore attracted an off-camera female fan following, and Hurst decided to pay Moore’s fees at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. There he spent three terms, and was actually a classmate of his future Bond co-star Lois Maxwell, the original Miss Moneypenny.

At 18, shortly after the end of the Second World War, Moore was conscripted for national service. On September 21 1946, he was commissioned into the Royal Army Service Corps as a second lieutenant. He was an officer in the Combined Services Entertainment Section and eventually became a captain, commanding a small depot in West Germany. He later looked after entertainers for the armed forces passing through Hamburg.