Conversation at Scott’s
By Herb Caen (San Francisco Chronicle, May 16, 1963)
He was seated alone in the Window Room of Scott’s Restaurant in Coventry Street, his long, tapered fingers toying with a glass of white wine to which two teaspoons of water had been added.
“Sit down,” he said, half rising, the terseness of the words tempered by a smile that flickered for a warm second—no more—and was gone. It was obvious he had little time for small talk. After a quick but careful glance around the handsome Edwardian room, he leaned forward to ask the key question. “What will you drink?”
“Martinis,” we said. Swiftly assessing the cryptic word, he summoned a waiter with a commanding flick of his head. “Two martinis, very dry,” he ordered. “Four and 2 quarter parts of Coates’ Plymouth gin to five eighths of a part of Boissiere, the white vermouth. On the rocks. No lemon peel, no onion, no olive. Stir, don’t shake.”
He turned his surprisingly blue eyes on us. Cold as sapphires, they shone out from a lean, ruddy face—handsome, if you like—that betrayed a few tell-tale signs of too many late nights at the baccarat table and perhaps more champagne (Taittinger blanc de blancs) than was strictly necessary. His luxuriant close-cropped hair was, I noticed, now completely gray. Again, he bent his supple, six foot frame forward.
“Cigarette?” he asked, offering a dull silver case surmounted by a curious coin. He caught my brief stare. “Gold sovereign,” he said. “My lucky coin at Monte Carlo. Made a killing with it.” The snakelike head of his Ronson Variflame flicked evilly and in a flash his cigarette was lit. As he took a deep drag, the neat polka-dot bow tie bobbed at the collar of his Sea Island cotton shirt with short sleeves.
If the foregoing sounds like a pallid attempt to imitate the style of Ian Fleming, creator of the James Bond stories—well, it is. The gentleman, described above, with whom we were taking lunch in the admirable surroundings of Scott’s, was Mr. Fleming, the successor to the Hammetts, the Greenes and the Amblers as the world’s best-selling author of international spy fiction. His hero, James Bond (No. 007 in the British Secret Service), has become a household word in most of our best households, including the one in the White House.
“Actually,” he said over the cold salmon, sliced no more than .007 of an inch thick, “I picked the name of James Bond because it sounded to me like the most commonplace name in the world. I first ran across it in Jamaica—a James Bond was the author of an obscure scientific book I was reading. What an unspeakably dull name, I said to myself. Just a step removed from anonymity. Now the readers think there actually IS a James Bond.”
“Do you know any good villains?” he inquired, flicking an ash off his blue suit (no pocket handkerchief). “Villains are the hardest for me. I was rather fond of Rosa Klebb, but, of course, I had to kill her off. Same with ‘Doctor No.’” I mentioned Blofeld, the evil fellow with the syphilitic nose who almost finishes Bond in his newest book, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, but Mr. Fleming merely shook his head over his lamb chops (pink in the middle).
“I kill off Blofeld in the next book, which I just finished,” he said regretfully. “An excruciating death. And as for Bond, I’ve got him in such a devil of a pickle I don’t know how I’m EVER going to get him out. Poor James.”
In On Her Majesty’s Secret Service the dashing Bond, who averages three affairs and an equal number of killings per book, marries a fine girl named Tracy. As they are starting out on their honeymoon in a white Lancia, the unspeakable Blofeld, in a red Maserati, races past and fires at them. At the end of the book, the Lancia has crashed into a field, “and Bond put his arm around her shoulders, across which the dark patches had begun to flower.”
“I hate to ask this,” I said, mindful of previous miraculous recoveries, “but is Tracy REALLY dead?”
Mr. Fleming poured himself a splash of vin ordinaire from a carafe and nodded sorrowfully. “Of course,” he replied. “Blood oozing out the back—sure sign. Too bad, but I couldn’t keep Bond married, you know. He’s on constant call, has to be too many places, get into too many scrapes. Wouldn’t do at all.”
He glanced at the stainless steel Rolex on his left wrist. “Really must go,” he apologized. “Catching a plane for Istanbul, where they’re filming From Russia. With Love. The first picture made from one of my books—Dr. No—has just been released here. Tremendous success. Made all its costs back right away, and I’m happy to say I have a small piece of the action. Sean Connery will play James Bond again—don’t you think he’s a fine Bond?”
We agreed. We had seen a preview of Dr. No and Connery seemed almost as good as the real thing. Mr. Fleming struggled into a luminous blue raincoat and led the way out of Scott’s into the gray London afternoon. As we searched for a cab, he pointed to a second-story corner window of the restaurant. “See that window?” he asked. When James is in London he always lunches there, at the corner table. That’s so he can look down and watch the pretty girls walking past.”
And with that, Ian Fleming—or is HE James Bond?—waved a cheery farewell and strode off into the anonymous crowd.
Note: The legendary San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen was one of Fleming’s early American fans and praised the books in his columns. Fleming returned the favor by writing an article, “The Case of the Painfully Pulled Leg,” in praise of Caen for the Chronicle. After Fleming’s death Caen devoted another column to him—extracts below:
Farewell to Double Nought Seven
By Herb Caen (San Francisco Chronicle, August 16, 1964)
I saw Ian Fleming for the first and last time in London, a little over a year ago. His penultimate [sic] book, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, was about to be published and the word was already around that in it, James Bond, the avowed bachelor, had married La Comtesse Teresa di Vicenzo, otherwise known as Tracy. “That’s true,” smiled Fleming over lunch at Scott’s, “but of course I had to kill her off at the end. Nasty death, on their honeymoon. It wouldn’t do at all for James to be married, you understand—a wife would just be in the way. I may have to kill off Bond one of these days, too—before he kills me. Plots are getting harder and harder to come up with.”
[…] I didn’t realize how closely he identified with Bond till we got around to a discussion of the movie versions of his books (Dr. No, From Russia With Love, and next, Goldfinger). When we agreed that the actor who portrayed M., Bond’s chief, was miscast, I suggested “You should play M.—you’re about the same age, aren’t you?”
Immediately, he looked hurt, and I clammed up. Obviously, he felt he had nothing in common with the aging sea dog who headed the British Secret Service. He gave me a long, cold, ironical look that would have done justice to James Bond.
[…] Spy critics poked fun at Bond’s modus operandi—pointing out, for example, that no agent would smoke those special cigarettes with the three gold bands, so easily identifiable. They snickered at Fleming’s penchant for ticking off Bond’s clothing, smoking and drinking habits by brand name, never letting him forget that he misspelled Bond’s favorite champagne—Taittinger Blancs de Blanc (he left the “s” off the first “Blancs”).
Fleming’s patient report to all this criticism was “Don’t they have any sense of fun?”—and, in this gloomy, literal-minded world, Bond was fun, for all his faults.