James Bond: Alcoholic.
Vodka martini, “shaken not stirred” – often said as part of a bad Sean Connery impersonation – is one of the most quotable lines from Bond.
Yet Her Majesty’s top secret agent’s love of the bottle would leave him impotent and at death’s door.
Doctors analysing the Ian Fleming novels show James Bond polishes off the equivalent of one and a half bottles of wine every day.
Continue reading the main story
“He’s a very glamorous person, he gets all the girls and that’s totally incompatible with the lifestyle of an alcoholic.”
Patrick Davies paediatric intensive care consultant
They say he is not the man to trust to deactivate a nuclear bomb.
Doctors in Derby and Nottingham sat down to read the 14 Bond novels in their spare time.
With a notebook at hand they charted every day and every drink.
Excluding the 36 days Bond was in prison, hospital or rehab, the spy downed 1,150 units of alcohol in 88 days.
It works out at 92 units a week – about five vodka martinis a day and four times the recommended maximum intake for men in the UK.
James Bond also Smoked like a chimney, at three-and-a-half packs of smokes a day in the Flemming Novels. The later iterations of Bond by more contemporary novelists have turned Bond’s drinking, smoking, and drug use down to reflect the times. In Carte Blanche the post 9-11 007 is not a non-smoker, and while he enjoys a stiff drink a little more than the next guy, he doesn’t seem to be dropping the stuff as madly as the Flemming books suggest.
Also all one needs to do is look at images Flemming commissioned, and how Bond is described in the books. Tall, lean, with dark hair and sharp features, really James Bond is a idealized Ian Flemming. Both of them share similar paths, and worked as a spy. Bond first was seen carrying a Beretta .25 because that’s what Flemming carried on his intelligence work. If Flemming wanted to go the plastic surgery route and correct his more unattractive features, I would be amazed if he didn’t choose to change his face to look more like that of James Bond.
Of course Flemming’s work in the military wasn’t nearly as exciting as Bond’s because Flemming was a real man. Also Flemming was a well-documented drunk and was almost always seen with a lit cigarette. Flemming died from complications of too much smoke and drink.
James Bond meanwhile gets shot, stabbed, and tortured on an alarmingly frequent schedule, and keeps bouncing back. That’s why its called “Fantasy”.
Of course this is a greatly common instance. We have stories of massive accountant who is also a skilled shooter fighting monsters.
We have a retired air force marine engineer who is tall, with dark hair and green eyes who carries a 1911 and loves classic cars.
I was going to type more, but I could spend all day talking about pulp novelists who write about characters who could be considered idealized versions of themselves. James Bond is no different.
