Jolly Roger

For his 80th birthday in 2007, Sir Roger Moore received an appropriate present: a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. Moore attended the dedication dressed in a double-breasted blazer, gray flannels, white shirt, repp tie and bit loafers, proving he is truly a throwback to another era. Moore, whose star neighbors that of Bugs Bunny, joins three other James Bond actors on the Walk of Fame: Pierce Brosnan, Barry Nelson and Sir David Niven. Bond actors who may or may not receive a star someday include George Lazenby, Timothy Dalton, Daniel Craig and Moore’s fellow Knight of the British Empire, Sean Connery.

Roger Moore is best known for his seven James Bond films, spanning from “Live and Let Die” in 1973 to “A View to a Kill” in 1985. Yet his career features several other dandyish roles. In 1960 Moore joined the fourth season of the American TV western “Maverick” as Beau Maverick, brother of the two leads. The backstory had him returning to the West after a five-year banishment to England because he had disgraced the family name by winning a medal for bravery in the Civil War. This was supposed to explain why Beau, a Texan, spoke with a British accent. A gambler and a dude like his brothers, Beau was the most sophisticated and successful with women. Moore stayed for fourteen episodes before decamping to his native England because he didn’t like the scripts. There he achieved worldwide fame in the television show “The Saint” playing the smooth Simon Templar, a detective and 20th-century Robin Hood who had debuted in the ’20s in a series of novels and stories by Leslie Charteris. Again Moore’s character was sophisticated, impossibly good looking, and fatally attractive to the ladies. As The Saint, Moore brought a light touch he later used in his Bond movies:

Every actor brought his own style to the role of James Bond. Connery was the most convincing. He was cold steel, unrelenting and reveling in his pursuit of villains and vixens. But although he had a dandy’s cold demeanor, he looked and acted too much like a professional killer to be a dandy, even if his suits were bespoke. Daniel Craig brings back Connery’s steeliness with even bigger muscles and a rugger’s raw features, making Bond more of a “blood” — the hearty, sporty type who liked to race four-in-hands — than a beau. Brosnan was an ad for Brioni, a vestige of the ’80s power look, who tried too hard to appear determined and ruthless. Lazenby was wooden. As for Dalton, he crossed his eyes too much.

For better or worse, Moore was the most dandy Bond. He was detached from the action, more bemused than endangered by the snares he fell into, more befuddled than perplexed by the villains and their nefarious schemes. No matter how dire the straits, he had one eyebrow mischievously arched and knowingly aimed at the audience. Moore’s clothes matched his esprit. With the proper alterations, you could switch the other Bonds’ suits and sportswear among them. Moore’s clothes, on the other hand, were distinctive. Often they suffered from the excesses of the ’70s — towering collars and expansive cuffs, bulbous Windsors, cuff links with blazers — but they belonged unmistakably to his James Bond. Spending more time in Cannes than Caen, Moore proves that old dandies needn’t wind up like Brummell: decrepit, senile and penniless.

Then again, Brummell didn’t have botox, plastic surgery or penicillin. — CC & NW