James Bond Creator’s Lost Letter & Rare Image Reveal the First-Ever 007 Design

✓ Correct! Ian Fleming. He wrote the first novel, Casino Royale, in 1953 at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, and literally lifted the name “James Bond” from the spine of Birds of the West Indies by the American ornithologist James Bond. Fleming wanted “the dullest name I could find” for his spy. He died of a heart attack in 1964, aged 56, and never saw the franchise become a cultural juggernaut.

✗ Wrong dossier. The answer is Ian Fleming. Le Carré wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and the colder, morally grey school of British espionage fiction. Graham Greene wrote The Quiet American and Our Man in Havana. Len Deighton wrote The IPCRESS File. Fleming is Bond — and the name literally came from the spine of Birds of the West Indies on his desk in Jamaica.

✓ Correct! Sean Connery. He’d worked as a milkman, coffin polisher and artist’s model before breaking through in film, and Fleming was initially horrified — he described Connery as an “overgrown stuntman.” After seeing Dr. No, Fleming changed his mind and retroactively gave Bond Scottish ancestry in later novels. Connery did six official EON films (Dr. No through Diamonds Are Forever) plus the unofficial 1983 Never Say Never Again.

✗ Wrong roster. The answer is Sean Connery. Roger Moore took over in 1973’s Live and Let Die. David Niven actually did play Bond — but only in the spoof 1967 Casino Royale, which is outside the EON canon. Timothy Dalton didn’t arrive until 1987. Connery’s 1962 Dr. No is where it all starts, and Fleming went from sceptic to fan within a year.

✓ Correct! George Lazenby. He had zero acting experience, talked his way in, got the role, and then walked away on the advice of an agent who told him Bond would be “dead by 1970.” It remains one of the most notorious career decisions in film history — On Her Majesty’s Secret Service is now widely considered one of the best Bond films ever made. Lazenby has been openly regretful about quitting in just about every interview since.

✗ Wrong file. The answer is George Lazenby. Timothy Dalton did two Bond films (The Living Daylights and Licence to Kill) in the late 1980s. Patrick McGoohan was offered Bond twice and turned it down both times, and went on to make The Prisoner instead. Paul McGann has never played Bond. Lazenby is the one-and-done who talked his way in with a borrowed suit and walked out a year later.

✓ Correct! The Aston Martin DB5. First seen in Goldfinger (1964), it’s been the franchise’s signature vehicle for over 60 years and has a near-cameo role in almost every Craig-era film. Aston Martin sold the DB5 from 1963-65 at a price of about £4,175 new. One of the original Goldfinger stunt cars sold at auction in 2019 for $6.4 million — making it one of the most valuable movie cars ever.

✗ Wrong garage. The answer is the Aston Martin DB5 — Goldfinger, 1964. The DBS came later (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, Casino Royale). The Lotus Esprit is the submarine car from The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). The BMW Z8 is Pierce Brosnan’s one-film-only 007 ride in The World Is Not Enough (1999). The DB5 is the ejector-seat one, and it’s the car that always comes back.

✓ Correct! “Shaken, not stirred.” First delivered by Sean Connery in Goldfinger (1964), and said some 20 times across the film series. Fleming’s novels actually call for a “Vesper” — three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet, shaken over ice until ice-cold, with a thin slice of lemon peel. In Casino Royale (2006), when asked if he wants it shaken or stirred, Craig deadpans: “Do I look like I give a damn?”

✗ Wrong pour. The answer is “Shaken, not stirred.” Connery said it first in Goldfinger (1964) and every Bond since has delivered a version. In Fleming’s Casino Royale novel Bond actually invents the Vesper Martini to the order of “Three measures of Gordon’s, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet” — shaken until ice cold. The phrase has become one of the most quoted lines in cinema.

✓ Correct! Judi Dench. She played M in seven films from GoldenEye (1995) to Skyfall (2012), spanning the Brosnan and Craig eras — a rare continuity bridge through the soft 1996 reboot. Her death at the end of Skyfall, in Bond’s arms, is still one of the series’ most emotionally earned moments. Ralph Fiennes took over as Mallory/M from Spectre onwards.

✗ Wrong file. The answer is Judi Dench. She played M from GoldenEye (1995) through Skyfall (2012), delivering the “sexist, misogynist dinosaur” line in her very first scene opposite Pierce Brosnan. Helen Mirren has played a Queen and a Prime Minister but never M. Maggie Smith and Emma Thompson are giants of British film, but Dench is 007’s M — and her onscreen death in Skyfall is the emotional climax of the Craig era.

✓ Correct! Adele’s Skyfall won the Oscar at the 2013 ceremony — the first ever Best Original Song win for a Bond theme, ending a half-century wait. She co-wrote it with her longtime producer Paul Epworth. Sam Smith’s “Writing’s on the Wall” (Spectre) and Billie Eilish’s “No Time to Die” also both won Best Original Song Oscars later — making three in ten years after 50 years of shut-outs.

✗ Wrong track. The answer is Adele’s Skyfall — the first Bond theme ever to win the Best Original Song Oscar, in 2013. Sam Smith (Spectre, 2016) and Billie Eilish (No Time to Die, 2021) both later won their own Bond-song Oscars, but Adele was first. Madonna’s “Die Another Day” was actually Razzie-nominated for Worst Original Song — the opposite honour.

✓ Correct! No Time to Die (2021). Delayed 18 months by the pandemic, it gave Daniel Craig an unprecedented sendoff — 007 died on the final mission, obliterated by a missile strike on Safin’s nanobot island. Craig’s five-film run (Casino Royale, Quantum of Solace, Skyfall, Spectre, No Time to Die) is the longest-arcing serialised Bond in the franchise’s history. The role has been vacant ever since, as Amazon and EON hash out the next casting.

✗ Wrong title. The answer is No Time to Die (2021). Skyfall was Craig’s 2012 peak (Adele’s theme, Judi Dench’s farewell). Spectre (2015) reintroduced Blofeld. Quantum of Solace (2008) was the second Craig film. No Time to Die is the twenty-fifth EON movie, Craig’s fifth, and the first film in the franchise’s history to outright kill off James Bond.