From 1989 until last year when Quantum of Solace was released, Mr. Hedison had the distinct honor of being the only man to play Felix Leiter in two seperate films (Live and Let Die & Licence to Kill). Today, he and Jeffrey Wright share that honor, however, Hedison is still many Bond fans’ favorite Felix Leiter.

If you don’t already own Licence to Kill on home video, I suggest buying the Ultimate Edition DVD or Blu-ray because (1) it’s one of the best James Bond films and (2) it features James Bond’s brother from Langley (although the film shows Leiter liaising with the Drug Enforcement Administration)!

Welcome to…

The David Hedison FLc Interview

Hunter Graybeal: In your extended biography located in chapter two of The Fly at Fifty, it says that you were in the theatre company for the 1951 season at Barter Theatre in Abingdon, Virginia. Being from nearby Bristol, Tennessee, I’d love to know what it was like for you to live there that summer, being a vastly different region than your native New England.

David Hedison: Barter wasn’t my first time living in the South. I spent a year in Jacksonville, Florida in 1945-46 as a seaman second class in the US Navy. I like the South. It may be different than New England, but people are people no matter where you go. I have always enjoyed Southern hospitality whenever and wherever it is offered.

HG: Also in your biography, it says that you appeared in A Month in the Country alongside your own teacher, Ms. Uta Hagen, and under the direction of Sir Michael Redgrave. As a young professional actor, what was it like to be on the stage with such heroes and heroines of the acting world?

DH: I learned a lot. It was great experience. I really could relate to the tutor, Belieav, and that came out in my performance. Hagen believed in my talent, which helped immensely. I gave that part everything I had.

Redgrave was an excellent director. It showed in the reviews we got and in the awards I won. I knew I needed to do well in this part. It was my first real break after almost a year of trying to make it on the stage in New York, so I went for it. And I ended up in Hollywood making movies, but that’s another story!

HG: If another The Fly remake were to be greenlit and produced again, would you be interested in playing a part in it?

DH: Not sure what I’d play now, but if the part was right for me, and they asked me to do it, I’d certainly say yes.

Chris Wright: July 14, 2009 will mark the 20th anniversary of Licence to Kill. Can you tell us what your fondest memory is from filming your second Bond film?

DH: I loved the Key West location. In particular, winding down beside the hotel pool in the evening after a hard day’s work, with my wife, Bridget, and Benicio del Toro, who is a lovely, warm person, nothing like Dario. Del Toro was not well known then, but I could see he had talent. There was a boat there and my wife and I would go out sailing.

CW: What did you think when you read the script and it said your character was going to get married and maimed in the film?

DH: I was coming down to the set from another job – a play called Return Engagements – and my advance script got lost in the mail. So I arrived for my first day of shooting with no script. Barbara Broccoli was kind enough to lend me hers to get me through the day, until they could get me one, so I really didn’t know what I was doing, at first.

CW: Do you wish you had been asked to do more Bond films as Felix Leiter?

DH: I certainly would have played the part if someone had asked me to, but no one did. They took Roger’s Bond in a direction that did not include Felix until his last film and then they decided “Felix” should be an Asian. I never complained about them casting me in the two films they did. Felix in the Fleming books is supposed to be blond and from Texas, and I am neither.

CW: Can you tell us about any of your current or future projects?

DH: I plan to make some personal appearances later this year, but the dates are not announced yet. They will show up on my website, DavidHedison.com, when they are set. I’m still working at the Actors Studio West and I enjoy that very much.

HG & CW: FelixLeiter.com would like to thank you for taking the time to participate in this interview.

DH: My pleasure.

THE FLc INTERVIEW WILL RETURN…

Unfortunately, Daniel Craig’s 007 probably won’t light up in Quantum of Solace but it looks like Felix Leiter will! Take a look at the smoke coming from the bar counter in this screenshot that I extracted from the teaser trailer:

It’s unclear whether we’ll actually see Leiter (and/or Bond) puff on a cigarette in this scene or if we’ll just see smoke coming from an ash tray. Either way, I’m just happy for some implied smoking especially from Jeffrey Wright’s Felix Leiter, my personal favorite interpretation of the character!

Ian Fleming’s Commander James Bond and Captain Felix Leiter both smoked cigarettes. Bond preferred a blend of Balkan and Turkish tobacco made for him by Morlands of Grosvenor Street and Leiter preferred cigarettes made by the American company, Chesterfield.

Discuss this Quantum of Solace news in this thread on the FelixLeiter.com Forums, the only place dedicated to the discussion of Felix Leiter on the Internet.

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In a terrible stroke of tragic irony Teresa, known as Tracy by her beloved James, was murdered later that very afternoon by Blofeld, who had escaped from Piz Gloria unscathed. James had never been fortunate in love, and Tracy had seemed to him to be the one girl for whom he would finally be able to leave the life of spying and killing and settle down. The loss was utterly devastating, driving Bond into a man hell-bent on revenge. Though he would find the elusive Blofeld again two years later attempting to ransom the world governments with a diamond-powered laser, it would be years before he would finally have the satisfaction of killing Blofeld once and for all by dropping him out of a helicopter into a towering smokestack after narrowly avoiding Blofeld’s assassination attempt. By that time, it was somewhat of a hollow victory.

Bond’s faithful American ally and friend Felix Leiter had always been there for him over the years, and while having unfortunately missed Bond’s wedding, Felix had heard and been saddened by the news of Tracy’s death. Years later, Felix would find a love of his own in a beautiful young woman by the name of Della Churchill. Felix and Della had chosen to settle down and live in the Florida Keys, and had their wedding there with hundreds in attendance and James as Felix’ best man. Just before the ceremony, now-DEA agent Felix had been informed that a wanted drug lord named Franz Sanchez was in nearby Cray Key and was within the DEA’s jurisdiction, so Felix reluctantly took James “strictly as an observer” and captured Sanchez (with James’ necessary help).

On the very evening of the wedding day, James was the last guest to leave his beloved friends to the beginning of their honeymoon, and Della tossed him her garter on his way out. When James reacted with serious hesitance and a noticeable lack of amusement at the traditional gesture, a concerned Della looked to Felix for an explanation, and Felix replied that, “He was married once, but it was a long time ago.”

As they entered their bedroom they discovered Sanchez’ men waiting with guns, and after knocking Felix unconscious, they brutally raped and murdered Della there on the couple’s bed. Taking Felix to a fishery warehouse, the men handed him over to the escaped Sanchez, who had Felix fed to a great white shark as repayment for capturing him. His purpose was not to kill Felix, but to merely leave him crippled and forever knowing the price for attempting to trifle with the drug lord. Hearing of Sanchez’s escape the following morning at the airport, Bond immediately rushed back to Della and Felix’ house to warn his friend. There he found Della’s body and a barely alive Felix. He immediately called the authorities there to save Felix before he lost too much blood. The shark had taken Felix’ left leg below the knee and nearly his arm as well.

James and Felix had bonded over their many adventures over the years, and while James would be forever tormented by the memory of his beautiful wife of only a few short hours, he knew the kind of happiness that Felix had felt on that wedding day in Florida and hoped that at least his good friend would get to have the life he could not; a life away from death and darkness, away from the spy game, away from bachelorhood. But it would not be that way. There would be no fairy tale ending for Felix’ life and career, and no vicarious pleasure for James. The two brothers-The British Secret Service agent from London and the ex-CIA man from Texas, who had been through many harrowing adventures and had come out unscathed, who often lightheartedly and incessantly teased each other’s nationalities, who had been there for each other in good times and bad, now shared one more bond, a horrifically tragic bond…

James and Felix became widowers on their wedding days.

Of all the experiences that two good friends could ever share, of all the feelings to which each could relate with each other, could there ever be a crueler common fate to befall two such men as these? Perhaps it was a natural risk and consequence of their professions; perhaps it was a fateful retribution for all the men and women whose deaths they had been responsible for over the years; perhaps they knew in the deepest places that they could never have the peaceful mundane existence for which they had been destined not to have so long ago; perhaps there can be no life worth attaining without the possibility of pain; perhaps accidents merely happen.

How would men in their position cope with such a traumatic bond?

Doubtlessly feeling echoes of his own tragic loss and never having been satisfied with the demise of Tracy’s murderer, James once again became hell-bent on revenge. He would stop at nothing to see Felix and his wife avenged. There would be no searching for years upon years, nor would there be any waiting on approval from the Service to proceed because no man or woman anywhere would be able to stand in the way of his retribution. When inevitably confronted by the Service, James resigned and forfeited his license to kill. He then meticulously wove his way into Sanchez’ network and destroyed the man’s empire from within. He got as close as anyone could ever get to Sanchez and he finally killed him, incinerating him with the lighter he’d been given as a wedding present by Della and Felix as poetic justice.

James could only hope that the vengeful act would give both he and Felix a small quantum of solace regarding Della’s death. However, there would doubtlessly be years of emotional pain that Felix would never be able to escape: unlike James, Felix would be reminded of his loss every time he took a step. Even still, there was a spirit in the eyes of the man that remained undefeated. Like James, Felix would learn to live with himself and would ultimately survive the journey he had taken from bachelor to widower.