# Krystyna Skarbek/Christine Glanville
**URL:** https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/krystyna-skarbek-christine-glanville/3049
**Category:** Books
**Created:** [April 20, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/krystyna-skarbek-christine-glanville/3049 "2025-04-20T19:31:54Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@GeorgeKaplan](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/u/GeorgeKaplan)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 7:31pm UTC](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/krystyna-skarbek-christine-glanville/3049/1 "2025-04-20T19:31:54Z")
> [@New Moneypenny Book](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/new-moneypenny-book/2759/2):
>
> Interesting.
>
> On a related note, Clare Mulley’s book about [Krystyna Skarbek/Christine Granville](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krystyna_Skarbek) also seems very interesting. And it does away with a popular myth routinely repeated in fandom and by writers about Fleming and Bond.
>
> According to Mulley’s Skarbek biography, she most likely wasn’t represented by Fleming in anything but the most superficial fashion, more based on hearsay than any actual familiarity with the agent. Apparently Fleming never even claimed to have met her.
> …
I’ve been meaning to ask if there are any Krystyna Skarbek scholars on the forum. This book is on the way to me. Has anyone read it? I have had a theory or two about her for a few years.
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### Author:  [@Dustin](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/u/Dustin)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 7:57pm UTC](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/krystyna-skarbek-christine-glanville/3049/2 "2025-04-20T19:57:28Z")
I have the book here for some time now; it’s in my pile of to-read nonfiction. Sadly, that’s also the pile I constantly get fresh updates I’m required to read, or sometimes reread, for some reason or other by a certain date, so I had to put Mulley’s book on the backseat time and again. I actually started it - late last year? - together with Alan Furst’s The Polish Officer, but only came to about page 50 before life interfered. So I cannot say anything beyond it’s a fascinating read about an intriguing woman.
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### Author:  [@GeorgeKaplan](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/u/GeorgeKaplan)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 8:32pm UTC](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/krystyna-skarbek-christine-glanville/3049/3 "2025-04-20T20:32:13Z")
Sounds similar to my own reading (bad) habits, haha. The blessing/curse of a very good memory is a stash of unfinished books that you can re-start months, years later as if it was yesterday. The Skarbek book will be bumping _The Limits of Power_ by Andrew Bacevich, Michelle Alexander’s _The New Jim Crow_, Stephen King’s _Dr. Sleep_, The James A. Corey (“The Expanse”) series, and a two inch stack of the new volume of Conan comics.
Also, disputed theories aside, funny coincidence how one of Ian Fleming’s favorite Jazz musicians, Hoagy Carmichael, the model for James Bond’s face strongly resembles Krystyna Skarbek/Glanville.
Striking resemblance. Fleming at least saw her photo, I wonder if he ever noted it.
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### Author:  [@Dustin](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/u/Dustin)
#### Post date: [April 20, 2025, 9:25pm UTC](https://quarterdeck.commanderbond.net/t/krystyna-skarbek-christine-glanville/3049/4 "2025-04-20T21:25:11Z")
I used to wonder if Fleming perhaps meant Stewart _Granger_ (whose real name was James Stewart) when they talked about casting Bond for the _original_ THUNDERBALL project. Because there’s also a striking resemblance to Fleming himself.
But after reading the Sellers book The Battle for Bond it’s quite clear these discussions were in fact about THE James Stewart and related to - vain - hopes to interest Hitchcock in a Bond project.
Also, Carmichael (and Granger, the Bond drawing commissioned by Fleming, and Fleming himself) are more or less what was then considered a certain ‘type’ of handsome. Facial features that Fleming found interesting and easy to sell to his readers.