The Feuds of Cubby Broccoli

It’s a bit sad–but not at all surprising, considering the creative personalities involved–that the people most responsible for shaping the James Bond of the screen that we know and love always seemed to be at odds with each other. Ian Fleming never encountered these conflicts until he sought to bring his character to film, and the ensuing disagreements with his partners snowballed into a very public lawsuit. The film version of Bond that he helped develop was never made, and it could be argued that Fleming’s Bond never ended up on screen; the screen incarnation was a different character entirely. The one man who was probably more responsible than anyone else for the cinematic version of 007, producer Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli, was not immune to these personality clashes, either, and seemed to find himself on the outs with almost all of his leading men at one time or another–as well as his partner, Harry Saltzman.

Sean Connery’s feud with Broccoli is perhaps the most famous one. Broccoli felt that the star owed his career and his success to James Bond–and to Broccoli and Saltzman taking a chance on an unknown Scottish actor. Connery, in a nutshell, felt that he was never properly compensated for what he brought to the role, and blamed Broccoli. Broccoli claimed that Connery was misguided in his public feud, because his financial dealings (particularly those relating to licensing; apparently Connery felt that he was owed royalties on every piece of James Bond merchandise, not just those that bore his likeness) were with United Artists, not the producer.¹ Both men had contributed greatly to the success of the 007 screen persona, but each felt the other was unfairly underestimating those contributions–or overestimating his own.

In his recent autobiography, My Word Is My Bond², Roger Moore recounts an attempt he made to make peace between the two men, both of whom he counted as friends:

“Some years previously, I attempted to bring Sean and Cubby together at a party at our house in LA, hoping they might settle their differences. I should add that, a couple of weeks prior to the party, there had been a newspaper article in which Sean was quoted as saying that if Cubby Broccoli’s brain was on fire, he ‘wouldn’t piss in his ear to put it out.’

At the party, I sat them both down with a drink. I heard Cubby – who was very much a gentleman Don Corleone – say, ‘Sean, did you really say if my brains were on fire you wouldn’t piss in my ear? I found that very upsetting.’

‘Cubby,’ replied Sean, ‘I’d gladly piss in your ear any time.’

End of conversation!”

It’s a good anecdote, nicely conveying the personalities of both men, and while Connery gets the flashy zinger, Broccoli comes out of it much more dignified. Moore remains impartial in his telling–interested primarily in the humor of it–but he himself was not without conflict with Broccoli, either. In Broccoli’s posthumously published memoir, When the Snow Melts (co-written with journalist Donald Zec), he recalls:

“What was beginning to peeve me was an unwelcome change in Roger Moore’s attitude and behavior…. When I hired Roger – albeit with some resistance in high places – his reaction had been, ‘Wow! This is the biggest break in the world! I ought to be paying you for letting me do it!’ And that’s the way he behaved for the first three or four pictures. What happened after that was almost a cliche. He was suddenly asking for things like private planes to locations…. Suddenly all these bizarre, neurotic little tricks were being pulled. They were all the more bewildering coming from Roger, who at first had been so cooperative. Like Sean, we had made him a millionaire, taken him into a world he’d never have got close to, doing those lightweight series like The Saint or The Persuaders. I said to him, ‘Quite frankly, Roger, you’re being a bigger pain than Sean Connery used to be.’”

Moore responds to these allegations in his own book, saying he “felt hurt” by them and asserting that he always did as he was asked and prided himself on being “an unspoilt, down-to-earth individual.” As always, with Moore, though, class prevails; he doesn’t dwell on the slight.

Broccoli’s conflicts with George Lazenby were not unique to him; by the producer’s account–and even Lazenby’s own admission, with hindsight–most of the people on the crew of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service had issues with the first-time James Bond. Broccoli was disgusted with his behavior, demanding to be treated like a movie star when he hadn’t even proven yet that he had that right. “Listen, George,” he recounts telling him, “you’re not a star – yet. You are not a star just because you call yourself a star, or the publicity people call you a star, or the director calls you a star. You’re only a star when the public says so! And this, we still have to see.”

The most grievous of any of Broccoli’s public feuds was that with Harry Saltzman. This one grew into a lawsuit–a lawsuit which delayed production of the next Bond movie, The Spy Who Loved Me, and had the potential to derail the franchise.

Throughout their partnership, Broccoli and Saltzman had many instances in which they didn’t see eye to eye. But both men contributed greatly to what ended up on screen, and the compromises between two divergent points of view may well have made Bond better than either one of them could have on his own. But the most frequent source of animosity was not a specific creative difference on James Bond; it was a basic philosophical difference on how to run their careers. Saltzman was never going to be content producing only James Bond pictures, while Broccoli felt that the only way to make the Bond movies good was to devote himself fully to them, and not attempt outside ventures. To his credit, Saltzman’s outside ventures usually turned out quite well. The Harry Palmer “anti-Bond” spy series starring Michael Caine is fantastic, as are his war movies like The Battle of Britain and, especially, Play Dirty (also both starring Caine). Personally, I even enjoy his pop oddity Toomorrow, a silly, Beatles-influenced confection about an intergalactic battle of the bands designed to sell the public on a rock band fronted by a very young (and very attractive) Olivia Newton John. But Toomorrow and certain other ventures were not successful–and spread Saltzman too thin to concentrate fully on 007. Furthermore, they left him in serious debt. Saltzman attempted to settle this debt by putting up as collateral his interest in Danjaq S.A., the company he and Broccoli owned in partnership that controlled the film rights to James Bond. And, whether he represented it in such a way or not, the Swiss bank in question, UBS, believed they were in a position to take full control of Danjaq.

Broccoli, unsurprisingly, contended that Saltzman had no right to put the partnership up for collateral on his own–or even to put up his own half, according to the guidelines of their initial agreement. Since his entire livelihood was at stake, he had no alternative but to take legal action, and so the two former partners, the two titans of the film industry, the two stewards of the cinematic 007 squared off against each other across a table in the shadow of the Swiss Alps. Broccoli won his claim, and the end result was United Artists buying out Saltzman’s half of the partnership, which established a new partnership–between the Broccoli family and the studio–that goes on to this day. James Bond was saved, but friendships were sadly destroyed.

Albert R. Broccoli would have been 100 this April, and this article is a part of a celebration of his life, in his honor. For such an occasion, why would I choose to celebrate conflict? I wouldn’t. I’m celebrating the fact that the man was bigger than any of his feuds. Almost every producer finds himself locked in various battles, but how many can successfully put them behind them? Broccoli’s widow, Dana, recalls the legal battle with Saltzman, the occasion when everything that her husband had worked so hard for, her family’s fortune, was in danger: “There was never a moment when we weakened, never a second when we wavered or might have capitulated. But Cubby was also a good man, who cared for people, understood people. Which means he forgave them. I don’t have that gift, unfortunately. But in the end, Cubby just shrugged it off. It takes a big man to do that.”¹

Ultimately, none of these various feuds mattered. As soon as he heard Broccoli was sick, even Sean Connery buried the hatchet and called him up straightaway, with genuine concern. Broccoli was even able to move past his differences with Saltzman, conveying his warmest regards to his former partner via Saltzman’s son in Saltzman’s final days. When Broccoli himself passed away in 1996, Moore, Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton all showed up at a memorial event. Dalton, who having been replaced by Brosnan while still in his Bondian prime, might have had the most legitimate gripe of any Bond actor against the producer. But he didn’t at all. In fact, he visited Broccoli frequently during his illness (as did Moore), and served as a pallbearer at his private Los Angeles funeral. The bonds that Cubby Broccoli made were greater than mere business; they were the bonds of family.

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Matthew Bradford, March 23, 2009

Tanner – Double O Section

Footnotes

¹Broccoli, Cubby. and Donald Zec, When the Snow Melts. London: Boxtree, 1998.

²Moore, Roger, and Gareth Owen, My Word Is My Bond. New York: Collins, 2008.

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