James Bond

There was a long interview on YouTube with Fess Parker, TV's Davy Crockett and later Daniel Boone. There were a number of startling revelations. Fess Parker spoke Russian, had been a law student, the show Daniel Boone had been cancelled only so the studio could put it into syndication to try to make back some of the vast sums they lost on the movie Cleopatra. And, most shocking of all----

Fess Parker was considered for the role of James Bond!

He thought it was crazy, but he discussed it with them. It might have given him a chance to use his Russian. They also considered Adam West.

Parker spoke with a Texas accent. I don't know if they'd have made him try an English accent.

Did they make the other James Bonds modify their accents? As far as I know, Roger Moore was the only Englishman in the role. The rest were Scottish, Australian, Welsh or Irish. And there was one American on a live TV show in the 1950s.

I bring this up because Rush Limbaugh got his enormous panties in a bunch when it was revealed in a hacked Sony email that they were considering black actor Idris Elba to play James Bond when the current guy quits.

It'd be fine with me. Ian Fleming was a disgusting racist. One of the chapters in Live and Let Die was entitled "N****r Heaven", changed to "Seventh Avenue" in American editions.

I never really liked James Bond movies. They just never seemed very good. Even as a child, I thought it was absurd that SPECTRE had a far more advanced space program than the US or USSR. I couldn't understand what women saw in James Bond. The fight scenes were never very convincing and the gadgets just seemed stupid.