Becoming Bond is a Fun Story That Falls Flat

 The last of three Hulu documentaries I watched last month, Becoming Bond is the story of George Lazenby, the forgotten Bond, in his own words.  It's a pretty fun story, though the end falls flat.

Unlike other Bonds, Lazenby was not born in the British Isles.  He was born in Australia and nearly died when he was little because his kidneys didn't work right.  After a bunch of surgeries he had only half a kidney left but while he was predicted to not live until his 13th birthday, he obviously lived a lot longer than that.

In his own words, Lazenby was a troublemaker at school, bringing in snakes and bats to unleash in the classroom.  He didn't graduate high school and wound up working as a mechanic before transferring to car sales.  Eventually he met a rich woman named Belinda and pursued her to London, where he wound up becoming a model.

Sadly he threw away his relationship with Belinda for a fling with a hot German model, but then a woman encouraged him to try out for the part of James Bond recently vacated by Sean Connery.  Since he wasn't union he couldn't get in until he stole one of Connery's suits and snuck in.

Obviously he landed the Bond role in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which was notable for its ending where Bond gets married only for his wife to be gunned down by Blofeld's henchwoman.  The studio offered Lazenby six more Bond movies, but he kept putting them off and finally announced on The Tonight Show that he wouldn't play Bond again.

And he didn't.  Instead Connery came back for one more picture and then Roger Moore took over until the mid-80s when it went to Timothy Dalton.  Then in the mid-90s Pierce Brosnan took over.  And then Daniel Craig became Bond in Casino Royale, which reused the ending of Bond's love interest being murdered, which is actually from the book of that name.

But what about after Lazenby left Bond?  That's where it falls flat.  There's a really quick wrap-up that's very scant on details.  He married...someone and had kids and worked in real estate.  And appeared in one episode of the 1984 action series The Master that you can see as part of the Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode Master Ninja II.  In that episode Lazenby gets to drive the old James Bond Aston Martin first shown in Goldfinger.  (The documentary doesn't mention that; it's just a Fun Fact I'm aware of.)

They don't even go that much into why he turned down the chance to keep playing Bond for what would probably millions of dollars.  They did mention that the contract was really restrictive; it was one of those old school contracts that basically would have required him to BE Bond in public for the next six movies.  An example of this was before the premiere of On Her Majesty's Secret Service he had grown a beard and the studio demanded he shave it off, but he refused and was barred from going to the premiere of his own movie!  

I tend to think given his background growing up working class in Australia, his troublemaking in school, not being a professional actor, and such that a lot of the reason he didn't stay on as Bond was he didn't like the studio trying to run his life.  The beard thing was a symptom of that.  I think in large part he rejected a multi-million-dollar contract out of spite, which is probably not something most of us would do.

It would have been nice if they had added a few more minutes to the end to make it a little more satisfying.  But I guess it was called BECOMING Bond, not AFTER Bond, which might be a good idea for a sequel that could also feature some of the other actors who are still alive.

There are plenty of books that likewise are a good story until the end.  Especially those annoying books I've called "nonendings" in the past where it gets up to some arbitrary point in the story and just ends with no resolution.  This wasn't quite a nonending, but not all that satisfying of one either.  Still, it's mostly a good ride to that point.

Fun Fact:  In the reenactments of various parts of Lazenby's life, Jane Seymour plays the woman who encourages him to try out for the Bond role.  She was one of the female leads in the first Roger Moore Bond film Live and Let Die, which certainly would have been one of those Lazenby could have starred in if he hadn't rejected the contract.  Another Fun Fact is this documentary was made by the same people as the one on The Dana Carvey Show in my previous entry and Carvey himself plays Johnny Carson in one of the reenactments.