Classic Bond Forum

David Niven as 007?

Enjoyable actor, but not exactly Bond. Too slim and too precise. He could make a nice British Felix Leiter-type, though.

Niven does look like a typical effette English gentleman, but he was surprisingly tough.

I think that he would have been fantastic in a late 1950's black & white Bond movie.

I don't think Niven would have been a good Bond, sorry.

Have you seen The Guns of Navarone? Gregory Peck is more the Bond character in that film. Niven most definitely is not.

Count_Lippe wrote:I don't think Niven would have been a good Bond, sorry.

Ian Fleming disagreed with you on that, I believe.

Yes I know, but what do you think Kristatos?

Count_Lippe wrote:Yes I know, but what do you think Kristatos?

Well, I'm loath to argue with Fleming, but I think his other choice, Richard Burton, would have been a much better idea. But then, when Russell Crowe, the Richard Burton of our age, was touted as a possible Bond, I was the one person who thought it was a good idea when every other Bond fan was up in arms, because they thought Crowe wasn't refined enough (!)

Burton would have been better than Niven, he was really handsome in his younger days, and he played a tough agent in Where Eagles Dare when he was in his 40s.

But didn't he have a drinking problem? I don't think he was in the best health.

Count_Lippe wrote:But didn't he have a drinking problem?

Burton didn't have any problem drinking (bdum-ching).