‘I’d have five women a day. It was amazing. But that was when they got the pill and wore miniskirts’

Now 82 and living alone, Australian George Lazenby regrets how his brief career as James Bond ended, but he sure enjoyed the wild, swinging ’60s film star ride.

Shaken, not stirred, never really applied to George Lazenby.

In fact, the way Lazenby, the self-described larrikin from Queanbeyan-via-Goulburn tells it, he agitated, cajoled and bullshitted his way to becoming the world’s most famous secret agent, James Bond.

“I was just having a go,” Lazenby said. “I never wanted to be an actor. I never wanted to be a male model. I was a car salesman, who started out as a mechanic. But all these things happened, one after another, and it took me on this crazy ride.”

That surreal journey has included a single stint as Bond — a plum role he famously quit after playing Agent 007 one time only — a marriage to American tennis star Pam Shriver, and wild times in swinging 1960s London, where Lazenby claims he bedded up to five women a day.

“I was a revolutionary kind of guy,” Lazenby, now aged 82, said.

“I didn’t do what other people did. I did what I felt like, as long as I didn’t harm anybody. I wasn’t looking to hurt people.”

Lazenby was born and raised in Goulburn, NSW, and his family moved to Queanbeyan, near Canberra, when George was 15.

George Lazenby makes an appearance at SpyFest in Goulburn, the town where he was born. Picture: Adam Bourke

“I was a larrikin, but that was due to a few things,” he said. “First of all, I had one-and-a-half kidneys out when I was three. When I was eight, I overheard my mother saying I wouldn’t live past 12-years-old, so I went out and had a good time.

“That made my character, I think. It was fun and games, and I played. I didn’t give a damn about education or anything like that. When I was getting a plaque in Queanbeyan for being James Bond, the mayor said to me: ‘You know, I looked you up. You’re the only guy that never got a graduation certificate for school’.”

Instead, Lazenby learned about life on the streets and wherever he could make a quid.

“I was a postman in Queanbeyan when I was 15. I would do that job before I went to school, and I was making 15 pounds a week,” he said.

“I used to be the telegram boy at the post office, and I knew every house in Queanbeyan. But then they found out I was dumping mail in the river.”

Now 82, George Lazenby lives alone in the United States. Picture: Araya Doheny

He worked as a mechanic, then a car salesman, where he learned the art of persuasion, a skill set that would later come in handy when he bluffed his way to being Bond.

“It taught me to let people be the boss,” Lazenby said. “If you try to sell someone a car they don’t want, you don’t succeed. But if you show them what they want, you get the sale.”

Lazenby followed his heart to London in the 1960s, and his masculine good looks landed him a gig as a male model. He came to the attention of Bond producers, Albert Broccoli and Harry Saltzmann, and film director Peter Hunt, through a TV commercial.

Broccoli, Saltzmann and Hunt were casting for a leading man in the 1969 Bond film, On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, after the original 007, Sean Connery, left the franchise over a pay dispute.

Diana Rigg and George Lazenby as James Bond in a scene from On Her Majesty's Secret Service.

“I’d never spoken in front of the camera before, and I beat 800 guys to get the part,” Lazenby said. “I bullshitted that I was doing movies in Manchuria, and other places, and they couldn’t check.

“When they found out I was bullshitting ... Peter told me, ‘You fooled two of the biggest bullshitters I’ve ever met in my life. If you can fool them, you can play James Bond’.”

They screen tested Lazenby at a movie studio and, to get a sense of his aggression levels, threw him into a fight scene.

“I knocked out a Russian. I didn’t know how to miss,” Lazenby said. “After that, they said: ‘We’re going with you’.”

The film was shot in England, Switzerland and Portugal, and pitted Bond against an ecological vandal, Blofeld, played by Kojak star Telly Savalas.

Diana Rigg, from the British TV spy series The Avengers, played glamorous Bond girl, Teresa di Vicenzo.

Lazenby would go to different towns every night by helicopter and “didn’t have any rules”.

“It was like being king of the castle,” Lazenby said. “We worked up in the mountains for six months. After three weeks, I got tired of being in the same place every day, so they loaned me a helicopter, so I could go into different towns at night.

“I didn’t have any rules,” Lazenby said “and better still, I didn’t know the rules.”

Asked how he wanted to play Bond, Lazenby answers: “I just wanted to do what Connery did. I didn’t know any better.

“If I stepped out of line as Bond, someone would say, ‘Bond doesn’t do that.’ And I’d do what they wanted. Honestly, I was just trying to get through it.”

The film topped the US box office when it opened in December, 1969, and eventually made $65 million worldwide, more than nine times the film’s $7 million budget.

The reviews for Lazenby’s Bond were mixed, from “he doesn’t fill Sean Connery’s shoes, Aston-Martin or stretch pants”, to the suave leading man from Down Under packing a “no-nonsense muscularity and maleness”.

George Lazenby “bullshitted” his way into the Bond role and it was short-lived.

Lazenby said his decision to walk away from Bond was based on bad advice from his former manager and agent Ronan O’Rahilly.

He said O’Rahilly told him Bond movies were unfashionable and out-of-touch with the freewheeling energy of the approaching 1970s.

O’Rahilly also convinced Lazenby to refuse a contract for seven more Bond films.

“He said Clint Eastwood was doing movies in Europe, and he could get me into the same pictures. And I went along with his dialogue,” Lazenby said.

“(Bond producers) put a ton of money on the desk and said, ‘sign the effin’ contract’. And I walked out. I can’t believe I did that.”

That mistake only multiplied when Lazenby tried to do other films but producers on those projects insisted he was still contracted to Bond and therefore unavailable.

“They’d say, ‘sorry George, we have to let you go’. That happened eight times”, Lazenby said. “I ran out of money and I went and bought a boat in Malta. The English were getting thrown out of Malta and the boats were cheap. I lived on that boat for 15 months. Never sailed before in my life.”

Lazenby received mixed reviews for his portrayal of James Bond.

He slowly returned to films, and starred in movies including Universal Soldier (1971), The Man from Hong Kong and (1975) and The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977).

Lazenby said he was often approached to do TV series but he wasn’t interested.

“It was like James Bond. You had to be there for the rest of your life,” he said. “I wasn’t that kind of kind of guy. I like to have my freedom. I would do bits and pieces, and that was good enough for me.”

Of course, when Lazenby walked away from Bond, everybody had their say.

“Poor Lazenby couldn’t do that because he just didn’t have the experience,” Connery said in a 2015 interview. Lazenby couldn’t do a good job because you have to have technique to get the character right. I know he behaved like a prize s---, alienating people from what they tell me — I’ve never met him - but it wasn’t all his fault.”

Broccoli also said casting Lazenby was a “mistake” adding: “He just couldn’t deal with success. He was so arrogant. There was the stature and looks of a Bond but Lazenby couldn’t get along with the other performers and technicians.”

Connery defended Lazenby against Broccoli’s attacks.

“I have known George for many years and arrogance is not in his character,” Connery said. “Alas, I cannot say the same for Broccoli.”

Rigg said Lazenby was “foolish” to leave to franchise after only one film.

“I think if he can bear to do an apprenticeship, which everybody in this business has to do — has to do — then he should do it quietly and with humility,” she said.

“Everybody has to do it.”

George Lazenby with his first wife Christine Townsend after their London wedding. Photo: Bill Orchard

Fifty-odd years later, Lazenby isn’t interested in a they-said-he-said post mortem.

“I thought Sean Connery was great as James Bond, and when I met him he was great guy,” Lazenby said. “I have nothing more to say about him.”

Lazenby once said he was “totally out of control” during the Bond shoot, partying hard, throwing bottles of booze in the air and shooting them on set, and chasing women.

“Oh, I’d have a different girl every night,” Lazenby told V Weekend.

“When I was living in London, I’d have five women a day. It was amazing. But that was when they got the pill and wore miniskirts. They were looking for us.

“It was a different time, you know. There was no disease that would kill you. And we had to make sure we could go through with the deal,” he said, laughing. “It was a different time, the 1960s.”

Lazenby as Bond had no shortage of female admirers and neither did the actor in real life.

Lazenby has been married twice, firstly to Chrissie Townsend, for 20 years. They had two children together.

He was also married to former tennis player Pam Shriver. They had three children together. Lazenby and Shriver filed for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences, in 2008. It was finalised, after an ugly public spat, three years later.

The former Wimbledon star claimed Lazenby was an abusive drunk. He alleged Shriver was addicted to prescription pills.

George Lazenby and Pam Shriver on their wedding day. Picture: Jeff Rayner/Coleman-Rayner

“She’s a strong woman and she always gets her own way,” Lazenby told V Weekend.

“We still see each other because of the kids. But it’ll only be a matter of time before I’ll be passing on, and won’t see them. But today, one of them is coming over to see me, and we’ll go somewhere nice. I get along with my kids, and it’s beautiful. I’m a very lucky man.”

Lazenby will return to Australia next month for The Music of James Bond concert tour. Major city orchestras will recreate classic music from 007 films, conducted by Nicholas Buc, and accompanied by singers Bonnie Anderson and Luke Kennedy.

Lazenby will take part in a Q&A session at each show.

George Lazenby says he’s “been broke a few times”. Picture: Araya Doheny

“I love Australia, and I really miss it there. I always have,” Lazenby said. “I tried to talk Pam into living there, but she wouldn’t do it. She couldn’t handle the way Australians talked to her. She didn’t like them coming up to her and asking questions. She liked to be more private.

“I would live in Australia in a minute if my kids were there.”

Six decades after walking away from Bond, and those wild times in London, Lazenby lives alone near Los Angeles.

He worked as a real estate agent, but these days Lazenby tinkers around the house, trying to catalogue a life well lived.

“I was clever with real estate. I bought and sold, but I can’t say I was a wheeler and dealer.

“I’ve got a ranch which I just sold. It has three rooms filled with junk, and I’ve got to sort that out. I’ve been broke a few times, but I recovered,” Lazenby said. I never, ever tried to have too much. I was happy to have enough.”

The Music Of James Bond, Darling Harbour Theatre, Sydney, September 3; Festival Theatre, Adelaide, September 7; Concert Hall, Perth, September 10; Hamer Hall, Melbourne, September 17.