10. Sean Connery Was Bribed Back In To The Role of Bond
During filming of
You Only Live Twice, Sean Connery was thoroughly disgruntled with the role of James Bond, the invasion of privacy which came with so public a part, and what he saw as greed on the part of producers Harry Salzman and Cubby Broccoli. He quit and the part was recast with inexperienced Australian model George Lazenby as 007 in
On Her Majestys Secret Service. When Lazenby declined to return, United Artists who bankrolled the movies, felt that they needed Connery back in order to continue the series, but UA president David Picker saw that relations between star and producers were so poor that they stood no chance of tempting him back. Picker flew out to meet with Connery personally and made him the following astonishing offer. He would return for one more Bond movie produced at UA by Salzman and Broccoli (Diamonds Are Forever), in exchange for which he would receive a fee of £1.25m (a colossal sum in 1971) and UA would green-light any two films of his choosing, with a guaranteed budget of up to $1m. Only one of these films (
The Offence directed by Sidney Lumet) never saw the light of day, and Connery donated his preposterous fee to charity.