Cheshire and Diamonds….Day 85 of Bond 365

Geoffrey Cheshire and Gabriele Ferzetti

Geoffrey Cheshire

Born this day in 1927

Toussaint in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service

Geoffrey Cheshire acted mostly in television series with a small number of parts in films. He does have the distinction of acting in both a Dalek film and a Dalek tv series story. He also had a guest appearance on Roger Moore’s The Saint in 1967. In 1969, he was cast as Toussaint, a henchman for Draco, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Some of his screen time included being present when Bond led the assault on Piz Gloria with Draco and as a wedding guest at the end of the film.

 Diamonds Are Forever

UK book release in 1956

Diamonds Are Forever is Ian Fleming’s fourth book and was released by Fleming’s publisher, Jonathan Cape. This story was based on research that Fleming completed for his non-fiction The Diamond Smugglers, which was published in 1957. I believe that Fleming’s research in Los Angeles and Las Vegas was included in his other non-fiction book Thrilling Cities that was published in 1963.

In the novel, Bond foils and closes a diamond smuggling group, which includes gang member Tiffany Case. Case becomes Bond’s main love interest and in the book, Fleming added four additional chapters detailing Bond and Case’s relationship aboard the Queen Elizabeth. 

Cinematically, Diamonds Are Forever was the seventh film and starred Sean Connery in his last outing as James Bond in an Eon Productions Bond movie. Tiffany Case was portrayed by Jill St. John and Blofeld by Charles Gray. Guy Hamilton directed the Richard Maibaum and Tom Mankiewicz screenplay. Deviating from the book’s Spang Brothers, the film version had the memorable Mr. Wint and Mr. Kidd.

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