139 – Contract bondage no good by George
Filed in Anecdotes, Business storytelling, Communication, Corporate Storytelling, Podcast
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | RSS
You don’t have to follow the path people expect you to take. Listen to hear why an Australian actor refused to sign a contract worth more than one million pounds.
The latest James Bond movie, No Time to Die, has hit cinemas in Australia. So this week, Mark shares a story—his first on Anecdotally Speaking for 2022—from the franchise! He mentions Becoming Bond, the documentary drama where he first heard this story.
Thank you for listening. We’ll be back next week!
For your storybank
Tags: character, expectation, integrity, opportunity, values
This story starts at 01:51
In 1969, Sean Connery had made the James Bond character famous but decided not to film any more Bond films. So, his studio was looking for a new actor to play James Bond.
They had a clear idea of what they wanted but had extreme difficulty finding it. The search was intense.
Then they found George Lazenby, an Australian man from a small town in NSW, Queanbeyan. He was a car mechanic turned salesman turned male model. He had never acted but became the next James Bond and starred in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
But he only starred in the one Bond film and is the only James Bond actor to do so.
One might assume that he wasn’t a great actor, but the movie was critically acclaimed. He was offered a contract for six more Bond films but declined after reading the contract.
The contract dictated how he would dress and where he would go. It seemed as if the studio would own him.
Lazenby was a maverick. He was his own man and refused to trade himself in to be their James Bond. He said no even when offered a briefcase containing one million pounds.
Lazenby chose to be himself rather than what anyone else wanted him to be. Now in his 80s, he has had a full and happy life.
Anecdote International is a global training and consulting company, specialising in utilising storytelling to bring humanity back to the workforce. Anecdote is now unique in having a global network of over 60 partners in 28 countries, with their learning programs translated into 11 languages, and customers who incorporate these programs into their leadership and sales enablement activities.