My Word Is My Bond

Roger Moore’s My Word Is My Bond was published by Michael O’Mara Books. I don’t know where Moore found his ghost-writer, but maybe it was his accountant. The book would qualify as an accountant’s joke anytime. 

Roger Moore is the first to admit to being an average actor. Maybe he hopes to be contradicted; indeed, I do contradict him as average is still praising him over his head, something his meager talents haven’t earned him. He proved that point over and over when miming James Bond. The book shows his writing abilities to be on a par with his acting abilities; or maybe he just chose an illiterate ghost-writer for the task. The book reminds one of his acting through and through; it’s mealy mouthed and bland.

When celebrities bring out their biographies, it is customarily a pack of lies. These biographies fall in two categories, how I would have liked my life to have been (but it never was), and how I would like to be remembered (and please forget about all the scandals). This one is a rare specimen, as it falls into both categories. But whereas other celebrities showed a certain artfulness while unashamedly names dropping in their concoctions, this one proves just plain over-kill. While reading, I wondered if some of his dear friends even remember having ever met him.

Starting with his childhood in Stockwell in South London is not a topic that fascinates, nor is being a hypochondriac; Moliere did that so much better. Worse, the story is not even amusingly presented. But calling every person he cares to mention, i.e. drop their names, a ‘very good friend’ is sorely testing readers’ credulity. And accidentally omitting his two marriages and the reasons for their break up just shows the quality of the biography: Zero content.

This book started out life as a list of names of the rich and the famous of a bygone era that then were cobbled together willy-nilly into some sort of writing. The long litany of names dropped range from actors to singers, from presidents to royalty, and is only sparely interspersed with thin anecdotal comments, most of which is either spurious or plainly and obviously just invented. The final bomb shell may be found in the last chapter; it’s a boring list of all the countries he has ever been to. Boredom at that point really hits rock bottom. Publisher said the book needed a few more pages; let’s draw up another list without bothering to string them out in ever repeating sentences.

There is absolutely no reason why anybody would want to buy this book except to commit suicide by boredom. It’s bland like a glass of water, but with less taste. It is as boring as Roger Moore was playing James Bond. It puts you to sleep after every second passage and the ghost-writer must have died of boredom while inventing its meager content. Even fans will be shocked by the complete emptiness that is Roger Moore.

I have accorded this book the title of Passenger Number One on the James Bond marketing train. If Roger Moore had never been inflicted on us as James Bond we would maybe have been spared this little horror. 

Further reading
Quantum of Solace: The Source
James Bond: Behind the Movies
Warren Beatty Biography