Desperately waiting for news on Bond25 and nothing’s coming? While you’re waiting, check out this news on Bond 6, “On Her Majesty’s Secret Service”, the first part (of three) of an interview with Erich Glavitza, the Austrian racing and stunt driver who was responsible for the ice racing scenes.
Astonishing how laid back the business of shooting Bond was done back in the day. A freak accident at a rally leads to a few headlines. And next thing you know you’re suddenly in the midst of a major production and putting a stamp on a cornerstone of Bond film history.
Magnificent tale and a major discovery on OHMSS’s production. I already took a closer look at Glavitza’s book and there’s a wealth of further anecdotes from the last century, baffling tales from the racing world as well as the business of driving at breakneck speed for movies. Highly recommended and I dare say it would also justify an English translation.
Quick question though, is not the website page a bit redundant now? Why not just place the articles in the forum environment? Would save the need to link etc.?
I can assure you all three entries of this series are fantastic and well worth reading. Stromberg has asked the right questions and Erich has delivered great answers.
Impossible to do a proper layout - which a piece like this deserves - in the forum. Also, it’s more comfortable for people who aren’t forum members and, for whatever reason, don’t want to join.
For my part, as a forum member/user, I was not even aware of that page’s existence. Thanks for the link, but unlike days of old where the first CBn page visited was the main site followed by forums, that has now reversed.
That accident was really crazy. It was an unlit railway crossing with the gates closed, and they hit it at full speed. The roof of their Citroen DS was ripped off, which may have been the reason why they managed to get out so quickly. Just seconds later, the car was hit by a train. There’s a picture of that car in the book, hard to believe that they both survived.
Peter Huber declared his retirement from racing just minutes later. When Glavitza asked him to join the movie crew, he was reluctant at first. But the temptation to be in a Bond movie was stronger…
As I wrote elsewhere, one of the most fascinating people I’ve ever met. His stories form the Le Mans shooting are equally great, as well as his tales from the racing scene. And he’s a great story-teller, too. When we were having dinner with him, he kept talking and talking and barely stayed silent for a minute. I could have listened for several hours more.
The book ends in 1971, but when researching for the interview, I stumbled upon an article from an Austrian magazine from 1997 which gave me some insight into his life after Bond. But as I already knew that the interview was going to have an epic length with just the Bond stuff, I had to cut short on that. But I just had to ask about the shark tank…
Thanks.
