Films/DVD Asylum

Posted by tinear (A) on December 18, 2007 at 05:16:42

In Reply to: RE: I thought it was David Niven?! For JB..nt posted by patrickU on December 18, 2007 at 02:18:16

""In 1965, Feldman had just come off of his successful sex romp What’s New, Pussycat? with Peter Sellers. Determined to have Sellers perform in Casino Royale, Feldman hired screenwriter Wolf Mankowitz to pick up where the late Ben Hecht left off and create a new role, croupier Nigel Force.

With a starring salary of $1 million and a white Rolls-Royce, Peter Sellers said, "You’re asking me to play James Bond? You must be out of your bloody mind. Offering me a king’s ransom, and don’t think I couldn’t use a king’s ransom. But I think the Bond image is too fixed. I don’t want to touch it."

But what really sold Sellers was the idea of a little man being asked to play Bond for a day. Sellers went to work re-writing his scenes and changing his character’s name to Evelyn Tremble. He worked closely with Feldman, writer John Law, and his personal friend, director Joe McGrath by trying to inject more humor such as the scene where he impersonates Hitler, Napoleon and Toulouse-Lautrec. Sellers was reportedly proud of his input and boasted, "I will be getting an author’s screen credit.""