005 Dapper Brit Transcript (Roger Moore)

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Michael: This person died of cancer in 2017 at the age of 89. He's a man.

Ashley: Johnny Cash.

Michael: Everybody keeps guessing Johnny Cash. I don't know why. All right. Early on, he expressed interest in becoming a commercial artist and worked while a teenager at an animation company.

Ashley: I was going to Walt Disney, but I think he's been dead for a long time.

Michael: Walt Disney has been dead for quite a while. Though he was not American, he was well-known to American audiences. He replaced departing James Garner in the fourth season of the Western hit Maverick.

Ashley: Oh, gosh, I'm having a hard time thinking of any dead British actors right now.

Michael: He had a cameo in the cannon ball run in 1981. The car race comedy with Burt Reynolds. Are you a Cannonball run, gal?

Ashley: No, I've never seen it. I don't know.

Michael: He once said in theatrical terms, I've never had a part that demands much of me. The only way I've had to extend myself has been to carry on charming.

Ashley: Well, so I was going to guess, but I thought he was still alive, Sean Connery.

Michael: No, but you're awfully damn close.

Ashley: I know. He's the other is the other bond guy, right?

Michael: Sean Connery did indeed pass away recently. Second to the last clue he was the oldest bond ever hired for films in the official series.

Ashley: Oh, okay. Let me think about his name. Gosh, Roger Moore. I can't believe I could.

Michael: Today's dead celebrity is Roger Moore.

Roger Moore: Oh, by the way, we haven't been probably introduced with Lena. My name is Bond, James Bond.

Michael: Welcome to Famous and Gravy. I'm Michael Osborne.

Amit: And my name is Amit Kapoor.

Michael: And on this show, we go through a series of categories about multiple aspects of a famous person's life. We want to figure out the things in life that we would actually desire and ultimately answer a big question. Would I want that life?

Today, Roger Moore. Died 2017, age 89. Category One, grading the first line of their obituary. Here we go. Roger Moore, the dapper British actor who brought tongue in cheek humor to the James Bond persona in seven films, eclipsing his television career, which had included starring roles in at least five series, died on Tuesday in Switzerland. He was 89.

What do you think?

Amit: Dapper. That stuck out to me.

Michael: Amen. Right? That word just leaped out. There, it's without question the most eye catching word, I guess ear catching word.

Amit: Yeah. And it hasn't been, I feel like that word really got revived again with Don Draper.

Michael: Interesting. You know what I think of when I think of dapper, I don't know why my association is with, Oh Brother, Where Art Thou. George Clooney has, I don't know if you remember the scene cause he cares a lot about his hair and he's trying to get the product,

Clooney: I don't want this pomade, I want Dapper Dan.

I don't carry Dapper Dan, I carry Fop.

But I don't want Fop, goddammit! I'm a Dapper Dan man!

Michael: My mind goes right to that scene in O Brother, Where Art Thou. Was it revived with Madmen?

Amit: I mean, I think there's the word association cause Draper and dapper as part of what I'm doing there. But yeah, I feel like that word was strongly associated with that character.

Michael: How do you feel about that word?

Amit: I like the word.

Michael: Dapper.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: Would you like to be described as dapper yourself?

Amit: Yeah, I think so. Am I?

Michael: I've Never thought about it. Uh...yeah I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you're not, not dap- it's not a reach to say Amit, he's dapper.

Amit: I'll take not, not dapper. I'm okay with that.

Michael: Okay. Let's get to the, what does it mean?

Amit: Yeah. We just know synonyms. There's a cool suave handsomeness to it.

Michael: Clean comes out for me too. There's something hygienic about being dapper, like, and I guess it is actually really a strictly masculine word. I've never heard of a woman being described as dapper.

Amit: No, but there's certainly an equivalent.

Michael: What's the female equivalent of dapper?

Amit: And now what is it? Something at the intersection of beauty and grace, forgive me for going first ladies, but it's like your Michelle Obama's and your Jackie Kennedy's.

Michael: All right. Positive association with the word dapper.

Amit: Yeah. And taking it back to here. I thought I for Roger moore. That's great.

Michael: Yeah. And it's right on the money. It is an excellent word to describe him. There's actually kind of nothing else in that for a New York times, obituary about somebody who's pretty famous and died at age 89, kind of short.

I mean, there's only one real comma splice in here. They managed to get the, he was James Bond in seven films and that eclipsed starring in five other series. And then I got to say the other thing that leaps out to me is died in Switzerland. Yeah. Like a British man dying in Switzerland does seem true to the James Bond and a dapper persona.

Amit: It's the living out of the character in some way.

Michael: One more question about the word dapper, I suppose. Does it have a connotation with wealth?

Amit: Think it does, but it's not . Exclusive to it.

Michael: Yeah. Have you ever described anybody as dapper?

Amit: Other than how I tried to fish for a compliment myself that was not even appropriate?

Michael: I'll have to think

Amit: Yeah

Michael: I'm happy to call you dapper.

Amit: No, don't. no no Don't do that falsely. Only if you mean it.

Michael: I'll have to think about it if I mean it, but I could mean it. There's like a 75% chance.

Amit: Yeah. But I might also just work on it like between now and when I see you next, I may just change my dress code and grooming habits.

Yes.

Michael: Okay.

Amit: What was the question? Have I called somebody dapper?

Michael: No, I was talking about dapper in a association with wealth. And yeah, I guess I also had asked, have you ever called somebody dapper?

Amit: I think so. I could, I don't remember who, I don't know who, but I think I have. I have some extended family, like older uncles or people that are like uncles to my parents or their cousins that I would definitely put in that category.

Michael: All right. We should grade.

Amit: Well, I want to, before we leave the obituary, we missed one thing, which is the actual headline of the obituary. I know the category is about the first line of the obituary. Did you catch the headline of the obituary?

Michael: Roger Moore, who played James Bond Double Oh Seven times, dies at 89.

Amit: I love that. That's brilliant. So I know we're grading the first line, but I wanna grade that also in part of my, my grading of the obituary.

Michael: Okay. Like maybe bonus points for the headline?

Amit: Yeah, extra credit.

Michael: Extra credit on- all right. Well, let's grade it. So am I going to.

Amit: I liked the word dapper. I didn't like without the, a lot of positives that we know the New York times for, so I'm going to go six plus half point extra credit, six and a half.

Michael: Six and a half? I think I'm pretty ready to co-sign that score. Certainly, I needed to hear about James Bond. Right off the bat. I liked that they did shoe horn in, he did other stuff. He was also a television actor and five other series, but that the James Bond thing eclipsed it.

So it does feel- in terms of comprehensive, what he's known for what we're going to remember him for- pretty good, but also a little bit weak sauce somehow. Like I'm looking for a little bit more cleverness that they sometimes have in these obituaries. So six and a half feels about right.

Amit: Yeah. If anything, generous.

Michael: Yeah, I agree. All right. Category Two, Five Things I Love About You. This is where Amit and I work together to describe five things we love about Roger Moore. So why don't you kick us off?

Amit: Yeah, I'll take one. Raised eyebrow.

Michael: Fuck I had that too. That's all right.

Amit: That's why this is a cooperation, Michael, where we work together to get the five things we love about you. This is not a competition, Michael.

Michael: Sure. So raised eyebrows, say more.

Amit: Raised eye- uh, he certainly didn't invent it and he gets a lot of credit for doing it really well. That kind of James Bond, snide clever, making a joke, but still kind of intimidating look. It seems like he perfected it.

Michael: Can you raise your eyebrows? Can you do one at a time?

Amit: I really tried to do the raised eyebrow and I can't very well, I can raise it a little bit.

Michael: I definitely spent some hours in the mirror trying to get the one eyebrow up.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: At some point in life.

Amit: It seems like it's a British trait like Mr. Bean.

Michael: Yeah. I was thinking John Belushi. I don't know why. In Blues Brothers, I remember John Belushi raising an eyebrow.

Amit: I can kind of see that.

Michael: Shall we go on to two?

Amit: Yeah, I want to say something about the raised eyebrow and what may be different about him and Belushi and Mr. Bean, is he did it with a handsomeness where it's not just like a comedic thing and that's what I liked about it.

Michael: But the raised eyebrow goes along with charm, which, if I may, I'd like to segue into number two.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: So I said pure charm. It seems to be this man's main weapon and maybe his only weapon in getting through life. I mean, the man just exudes charm. Is that something to be admired or not?

Amit: It's really hard to qualify just to me a yes or no to that question, because I think it can have negative connotations. Charming can also kind of mean cunning or deceptive. I think his style of it is virtuous. I think it's just a personality, the same way that, that somebody can be considered an extremely happy person or extremely polite.

Michael: I feel like you're underselling this. I mean, it's intentional. It's cultivated. It is conscious. To be charming and to use charm as a way of going about how you deal with people in everyday life. I agree that to qualify it as good or bad as a little bit meaningless that in some situations it's deceptive, it's the thing that gives you a pass. In other situations, it's also the thing that might lighten the room and, you know, help people get through tension or something like that.

Amit: Is there anything wrong with it?

Michael: I haven't made up my mind about that. I think it's his defining characteristic, how much it speaks to something I want or don't want- his existence, and his persona makes me wrestle with that quality in a way that I can't think of any other dead celebrity having done the same.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: What do you got for number three?

Amit: I made this semi-autobiographical. That his mother was born in India, even though she was a member of like the British Raj, and who knows, but I liked that.

Michael: Yeah. That's nice.

Amit: Yeah. Number four.

Michael: Number four, the history of stepping in to fill thankless roles, especially James Bond.

This was mentioned in the quiz, he replaced James Garner on the TV show Maverick. I think as a different character, I've never actually watched the show Maverick, but that was one of the ways in which he became familiar to American audiences. And then to be basically the number two bond after Sean Connery. Have you ever heard anybody make the case that Roger Moore is their favorite bond?

Amit: My father is a huge James Bond fan, and I think that he would, he would argue for Roger Moore as his favorite.

Michael: What did Roger Moore do as Bond that spoke to your dad, do you think?

Amit: I think the charm and the dapper, possibly more than Connery. Yeah.

Michael: What is your relationship to bond? We should talk about this.

Amit: I think I've seen all of them once. Maybe a few of them a couple of times, I don't have a particularly strong affinity. I'll see the new ones mostly because my dad is a fan. I tend to watch them, but it's a passing appreciation.

Michael: That's about where I'm at. Maybe a little bit, even less so. I know there are people for whom James Bond is on the Mount Rushmore of most important fictional characters in pop culture. I am not one of those people, but I do think the archetype is important. These are big shoes to step in it's it's like Batman or something. And I guess there's a world in which the person who succeeds Sean Connery totally screws it up and ruins it for people. That even though Roger Moore is nobody's favorite bond, he also kept the franchise alive for 0 0 7 movies. That is itself an accomplishment in a way that he did it at least good enough, so that Bond to this day is a relevant character in our lives.

Amit: We got to say here, I know we're in the middle of our five things, but the, the studio was sold to Amazon in the last year.

Michael: I didn't know that.

Amit: Yeah. So they will own the Bond franchise, I believe.

Michael: And I think Daniel Craig's only got one more in him. I think they're talking about somebody else stepping in. And you know Roger Moore was actually up for the role before Connery filled it, but he had other obligations on TV? Yeah. All right. Well, let's get to the fifth, what do you got?

Amit: I got that he did an appearance on the Muppets and was rejected by Miss Piggy.

Michael: I watched that.

Muppets: Roger. I know what you're thinking. I doubt that. You're thinking that you are a man and I am a pig.

Amit: Did he watch it?

Michael: I did. I read the same thing. I saw a different thing. I saw him rejecting Miss Piggy.

Amit: Oh, he rejected Miss Piggy?

Michael: Yeah, I know, but the way I read it too, was like, wait, he got rejected by Miss Piggy. I wanted to watch that. And when I watched the clip on the Muppet show, Miss Piggy's fawning all over him and he's like, Piggy, no, I'm just not interested.

Muppets: Roger, silly dear dear Roger, it can work. Roger. We can make it work. Yes.

But I don't want to make it work!

Michael: And then the skit ends and he's got a date with another Muppet pig and Miss Piggy's heartbroken over it.

Amit: Oh, that's a much sadder

Michael: I know.

Amit: Turn of events.

Michael: I know.

Amit: But maybe, maybe I'm wrong about this. Maybe status wise, Miss Piggy can have anybody she wants. Okay. Um.

Michael: Yeah, that's true.

Amit: I mean, she does, she has the run of the place and the fact that she gets rejected, maybe that's, that's the irony and that's the humor.

Michael: Yeah. Help me with the recap. So what did we get for our five?

Amit: We have charm, we had raised eyebrow, Miss Piggy,

Michael: Miss Piggy. I had a history of not thankless roles, but at least carrying the Bond franchise and the Maverick franchise through tumultuous times.

Amit: And I took mother born in India. Mother born in Calcutta.

Michael: All right. Those are our five let's move on to Category Three, Malcovich Malcovich.

Malcovich: Malcovich Malcovich. Malcovich Malcovich, Malcovich?

Michael: This category is named for the movie Being John Malcovich in which people take a portal into John Malcovich's mind where they can have a front row seat to his experiences.

Amit. What is your Malcovich Malcovich moment?

Amit: Uh, I'll take it cause mine's a little plain, but it's really the one that I believe in is filming that opening scene where he's walking, and he flips the gun and shoots the screen. And then the special effect goes in of the blood coming down the screen. And I realized there's been X number of people that have gotten to do that.

Michael: Six.

Amit: Six, but that's where I want to be. I want to be in the body. In filming that scene and then possibly re-seeing it at the beginning of each movie, or just sampled all the time and parodied. And but I guess if we're going to go to a specific moment, it is taking those steps, pivoting and aiming.

Michael: Is it because of this sort of excitement of what it represents and the physicality of being a quick draw? But have walking confidently one minute and then being ready to shoot somebody the next?

Amit: No, it's the representation because being able to walk one minute and shoot somebody the next, I mean, that's kind of got this sort of wild west feel to it, but I just think it's the iconic representation of that walk, that pivot, that aim, that fire.

Michael: I wonder if he did it a new time for every film. Cause the first time you do it, the first time he did it, you got some sort of consciousness of like, this is what Sean used to do, but then like the second through seventh times he does it, he's owning the character more and more, he's no longer stepping into their feet. Plus the franchise continues to be successful. So. Yeah, that's pretty good.

Amit: What is your Malcovich Malcovich moment? So he is Sir Roger Moore. He was knighted and the celebration was with Tom Jones of It's Not Unusual, Tom Jones.

Michael: He's Welsh, I didn't realize that.

Amit: I didn't know he was Welsh.

Michael: Yeah, I didn't either, right. I always assumed he was American. You know, I was looking at the pictures of them being honored by the queen on the same day and what he's being honored for, by the way, this could have easily made the five things category, what he's being honored for there is his work with UNICEF and trying to help impoverished children of the world.

Which was more or less what he dedicated his life to after the bond franchise, he acted sporadically, but he was a true humanitarian. So much so that the queen recognized him for his work, and knighted him and Tom Jones on the same day. I wonder if he's comparing himself to Tom Jones in that moment.

I wonder if he's thinking I did gone, that's not unusual, you know,

I guess I just want to be in the John Malcovich portal of Roger Moore's mind looking at Tom Jones and thinking, how am I doing, you know, lifewise, you know.

Amit: Tom Jones as of today?

Michael: Still with us.

Amit: Okay. So we can't, we can't do the flip, like do the Malcovich moment. What was it like for Tom Jones?

Michael: Still with us yeah, I went and checked that out. He's in his, I think eighties.

Amit: That's really good. Was James Bond, the character knighted?

Michael: I don't think they knight fictional characters.

Amit: No. I just mean within the plot of the show.

Michael: I don't know. You seem to know the franchise better than I do.

Amit: Yeah I don't know the answer to that.

Michael: That's a good one for Twitter. Okay, Category Four, how many marriages? Also, how many kids, and is there anything public about these relationships? You want to kick us off here?

Amit: A lot of marriages. I saw in the first one, he was 18 years old.

Michael: Yes. And married a woman six years older than him. And it sounds like they started hooking up before he was 18, even. I also read and tried to get more information on this, that he was the victim of domestic abuse with wife number one, and they divorced after seven years.

Amit: Does that mean physical abuse?

Michael: I think so.

Amit: Okay.

Michael: It certainly sounded like- I tried to, again, try to dig into this and get bits and pieces and he wasn't particularly public about this, but it sounds like things got contentious and violent. But then, before he's left wife number one, he has discovered an affinity or relationship for wife number two, at age 25. She was 12 years older than him.

Amit: There is, we have an early pattern.

Michael: A little bit, yeah. Which, you know, I think it's even uncommon today. Certainly in the fifties, a man marrying a woman 12 years his senior seems atypical. No judgment one way or another, but it sort of stands out.

Amit: Yeah.

Michael: I read the, on this one that they had a series of miscarriages. Roger Moore apparently later said they might've survived if they'd had kids. Again, some domestic abuse here, she smashed a guitar over his head when she learned he had an affair with his third wife to be. Uh, this was towards the tail end of their marriage, late fifties, early sixties.

Amit: The years, late fifties, early sixties. Not age.

Michael: Correct. Correct. So, third wife, he's not actually technically divorced to wife number two, but he's living with the woman who would become his third wife. And just to clarify, this is all before James Bond, even though he's having successes as a television actor.

Amit: She's the Italian one at this point?

Michael: Yes, Louisa Mattioli. I have all their names here. The first wife was Dorn van Stein. The second one was Dorothy Squires. The third one is Louisa Mattioli and they have three children and they finally marry in 1969, although they started having kids before they got married. Roger is around 42, 3 kids. Actually, all of the children were born before they were officially married and they stayed together until 1993, around the time Roger is 66. At age 66, he develops feelings for someone,

Amit: sorry, before we're any musical instruments broken over any part of his body during this third, marriage?

Michael: I didn't find anything about more smashed musical instruments on Roger Moore's head.

Amit: No pun intended. More musical instruments.

Michael: Oh, I'm so glad he pointed out to me. Cause I would've been here all day trying to figure it out. What they,

Amit: sorry. So let's go back to 1993.

Michael: Well, 1993, he's diagnosed with prostate cancer, which he does survive, but he talks about this as being a turning point in his life and develops feelings for his fourth wife to be who is with until death, Christina Kiki, full strip.

She had been good friends with Louisa Mattioli. Previous wife, but that friendship suffered as a result of the affair. And there was an estrangement from the kids for a period of time. The kids were mad at dad when he goes on to wife, number four later to be reconciled. Yeah. And I tried to find more out about what the kids had to say about dad today, and everybody's pretty tightly.

About it other than to say there was a period of estrangement, basically the man is married to somebody for his entire adult life from age 18 to 89. He's got a wife. What, let me

Amit: ask you something as a married person. Sure. So my understanding of marriage is that you make a vow until death. Do you part as part of that vow

Michael: so far so good.

Amit: So to me, it would be, it would be heartbreaking or life altering. Every time you have to break that vow. Is that just too much black and white

Michael: thinking? I think it probably is. I mean, there's such a range of attitudes around marriage. I think the institution has evolved tremendously over the last. 70 years.

And I think some people are like, well, I guess I'm just supposed to do it. And some people are, this is the most important commitment I'm going to make in my life. And, uh, it's important to me that I make good on this commitment come hell or high water, which is one of the reasons some people stay in shitty marriages because they feel that just the symbolism of having committed to it is more and more than, than anything else who knows.

And I think that this category is always a little bit. Funny, I don't know how you read this history of Roger Moore's marriages without seeing something troubling. Like four marriages is a lot. All of them seem to end with the woman in a state of heartbreak, except for the last wife and the fact that his kids were pissed at him for a little while.

And obviously very, very handsome man. He's a sex symbol. He played fucking James Bond. I mean, James Mons, you know, synonymous with being a ladies, man. Yeah. And I guess this is how I would wrap up this category on it without knowing the inner workings of each of these marriages. This is to me the most problematic aspect of the Roger Moore stats.

This speaks to a troubled relationship with oneself in a committed relationship and how important marriage actually is. And that children suffer at some point along the line sort of stuff. I mean

Amit: maybe, but this is, I think this is one of the difficult, weird things about our show is as a retrospective.

So there were, we know that there were four different instances in which he fell in love, likely was overjoyed and genuinely, truly thought he was making a lifelong commitment. And did it publicly in front of friends and with some sort of holy book or some sort of ordained

Michael: person ceremony. Yeah, sure.

Domestic abuse and the first two of those. Yeah, but

Amit: there had to, like I said, there, there were. Tremendous joy and hope. Each of those times, if at the first two of them there was literal violence, you know, that certainly pardonable that, that marriage wouldn't last, but all I'm saying is yes, it looks problematic.

I don't have an

Michael: answer yet. Okay. What I also don't see is learned lessons. Obvious to me that he's learning from the previous relationship. And I guess that's something I would want in a love life. If I have a marriage that fails, then I certainly hope that I do some self-examination of what went wrong here.

And into the extent I'm going to commit to the next person, how can I make this work? It's not obvious to me that ever happened. The one thing I saw about wife, number four, that was that he said they got along. We don't fight that to me is actually not the mark of a great marriage. I think healthy marriages have fights.

I think you figure out how to fight and not have it be an existential threat. It's not just about getting along. It's that adage of we're growing in the same direction and we're working shit out. I, that happened outside. I disagree

Amit: pleasantly. I think you need to learn how to fight. I don't think so. I don't think I want to change that about myself.

We'll talk

Michael: about it offline. Let's move on to category five. If you Google the net worth of any dead person for better or worse, Google will return an answer. What did you find? I found

Amit: 110 million.

Michael: That's what I found. Holy shit. That's 110 million. I mean, makes sense. He, so he, he made well on the bond franchise.

He also made well on the bond franchise. Before, that kind of money seemed to me so common. Yeah. I

Amit: mean, that's a large number of, for somebody in today's media or

Michael: 110 million, amen to that. And he came from a meager backgrounds, which is, I think sort of interesting about him because he looks like somebody who's born into.

Those handsome features and being dapper. This is why I asked the question earlier about dapper and wealth being correlated. So yeah. Holy shit. 110 million. How does that sit? Not as a number that you do or do not want, how does that sit as a number for Roger Moore for you? Yeah.

Amit: Got it. I mean, there's nothing wrong with, there's nothing wrong with being high.

It's just, it just seems either well compensated or manage his money

Michael: very smartly or both. Yeah. Had it been 50 million that would have seemed high to me. Yeah. You know, and he

did

Amit: have a tax thing too. Yeah. That was part of the whole living in Switzerland is he was a tax optimizer.

Michael: All right, let's go on to category six, Simpsons, SNL, or Hollywood walk of fame.

This is a measure of how famous a person is. Uh, we include both guest appearances on SNL or the Simpsons as well as impersonations Hollywood

Amit: walk of fame. That happened late in

Michael: life. Yeah, that one is like the year 2000. Okay. Yeah, I cannot say the year, 2000 without thinking

good

Amit: for counting in handy dated you. Did you get anything on Simpsons

Michael: and SNL? No. Uh, there is one Simpsons reference and I vaguely remember this. I think it's like several shorts in the Simpsons where Millhouse. Is in some shop where he asked to buy a photo and he sees a rare photo of Sean Connery signed by Roger Moore worth $150, which actually it'd be a great collector's item.

Uh, and then with SNL, I never saw Roger Moore make an appearance. Obviously bond was parodied. I actually love the Millhouse story. Yeah, it's pretty good, huh. But I think the Hollywood walk of fame is enough to, he made us was very famous man.

Amit: And he made it separate from. Just the character making it right.

He did so good at being the character that he made it as an individual, obviously bond made it bond, transcended all pop culture. Yeah. But for him to make it as the person that played bond.

Michael: Category seven. This is the last of the knowable facts category. I love this one. There's was a new category on their show where they building it.

It's called over under, in this category. We look at life expectancy for the year that they were born to see if they beat the house on Roger. Maura was born 1927. Life expectancy for men was 59. He made it to 89. He beat the house out by 30 years. Crushed it. Okay. Good. Okay. Thus far, we've learned about things that are relatively easy to know in this next series of categories.

We're going to get a little bit more speculative. This is where we begin to take our best guess at what we think it would have been like to have been this person. The first of these categories is man in the mirror. What did Roger Moore think about his own? Um, it loved it. No question. Must've yeah. I have no question written down.

I want to just pause very briefly here. To me, there is something like, obviously handsome about the man, but also kind of plain. The features are very straight they're sort of nondescript. Would you have loved that reflection? Yeah. Yeah. I think I probably would have to, especially the fucking eyebrows. I would've loved to move my eyebrows the way he can.

I would have spent hours in the playing with my eyebrows. All right. Next category, outgoing message. Like man, in the mirror, this is about self perception. How do you feel about the sound of your own voice? Did Roger more like the sound of his own voice? Amit

Amit: I think same thing died. Don't have any doubt.

I would have to say.

Michael: Yeah, hard to see how it could be otherwise. And he's in control of it. He's a very deliberate speaker, you know, and he did do some voiceover work, which makes sense. He should have. Yeah. Yeah. Next category, regrets, public or private. We want to know what, if anything kept this person awake at night?

Uh, let's start with public. I'll lead us off here. The marriages. I think that there's some smatterings of regret. I don't think he was very forthcoming with the entertainment journalists about how much he. Struggled with his marriages, but there are little clips here and there where he kind of betrays. I think what's going on.

I did pull this one Q and a from the Roger Moore Memorial when. And I'm going to read this aloud. Uh, so this is different. This is apart from marriages. So the interviewer asked to our mind one of the most interesting interviews we read recently focused mostly on your reflections that you regretted your bond days, but obviously the money and status were extremely good.

And you can now use this to promote UNICEF's. Taken in balance. How do you maintain this statement? Roger Moore responds. Of course I do not regret the bond days. I regret that sadly heroes in general are depicted with guns in their hands and to tell the truth, I've always hated guns and what they represent.

There's nothing glamorous about death. The set of sight these days is the image of hundreds of thousands of children, kidnapped and alert, and to being child soldiers from the age of eight bond was escapism. But not meant to be imitated in real life. So there's a little bit of regret with the relationship with the character, with being a

Amit: gun toting hero.

Michael: Yeah. I mean, I think in his sort of post acting phase of his life, he is. Obviously very dedicated to humanitarian work in the developing world. And it use on the ground. There's pictures of him visiting impoverished villages and talking about, you know, kids who can't get a glass of water and just all the stuff we take for granted.

There's a category of celebrity out there who. Might put their poster on the humanitarian work. And then there's another kind of celebrity that actually gets their hands dirty. I got the impression from his humanitarian work with UNICEF that he's in that latter category that its true commitment to trying to do something about child poverty in particular.

Yeah. So it contrast that with having played James Bond, the icon. I don't see a clear sort of like I'm at peace with what I did. I don't regret playing bond. It gave me all these fortunes in life and gave me this profile. And celebrity and that's good, but the character himself, I hate guns. He played fucking James Bond and he hates guns.

That sounds like a regret to me.

Amit: Yeah. Doesn't necessarily mean that he wishes it was done differently because it was the time, you know, you can form that opinion, years, decades after you've played the character. And. Not necessarily regret having played the character, but yeah,

Michael: I hate gums, but just saying you Amit had guns.

I do. Yeah. Yeah. I haven't had the right relationship with guns. No, I've tried,

Amit: like I've even done. I've been to like a shooting range. I've been hunting, but yeah, no, maybe,

Michael: maybe I, I don't have chewing tobacco. It makes the whole experience a lot better. I think. So. Yeah, I think we've done what we can

Amit: Slingshot would have been.

Michael: I know what you mean. Let's not get into second amendment stuff.

Amit: No, we shouldn't, but I, yeah, I can see how that's, that is a regret that he carried, but it's not necessarily a regret in that he wished he didn't do it.

Michael: What about private regrets? I, all I have here is love life. I don't know that he's torn up about the fact that he had a series of tumultuous relationships and they, some of them long lasting, I mean, his third wife spanned about 30 years, but it does have the hint of regret to me.

Nothing else. I obviously see here. How about you? Yeah. I didn't have anything.

Amit: In addition

Michael: to her, we just talked about, okay, our next category, good dreams or bad dreams. This is not about personal perception, but rather, is there a look in the eye that suggests inner turmoil or inner demons or unresolved trauma, Amit Roger Moore, good dreams or bad dreams?

Amit: I wouldn't get dreams. I didn't see it. This is an intuition question, but I didn't say it.

Michael: Uh, so a self-assuredness I didn't see a haunted furnace. Uh, so I said, good dreams as well. This looks like somebody in as much as they are very, either very good at exuding inner peace, or actually have it either way.

All right. Second to last category, cocktail, coffee or cannabis. This is where we ask which one would we most want to partake with our dead guests? Now, this may be a question of what's. The most fun to do with Roger Moore or another take on this question is which of these drugs might unlock something, allow access to a part of their personality that you're most curious about.

What did you have.

Amit: So I want to go through the process of elimination. So the cannabis, I don't know. I just wasn't that interested. I don't want to know

Michael: too much higher with Roger

Amit: Moore. Yeah. Coffee again, like I want something a little more adventurous with him. Yeah. Cocktail, but I don't want to bond a cocktail.

Like I want either a Budweiser or like a wild Turkey

Michael: with him. You know, what would you hope for the experience to have a Budweiser with Roger Moore? The

Amit: lack of stage. To it. If we had, you know, a proper Brit like a Pimm's cup or a martini or any of these things that I would associate with this dapper charm, and it would feel like a little bit like a fantasy camp tour, whereas I just want the more, slightly authentic.

Michael: Yeah. I basically had the same answer and I wrote probably cocktail just because I'm looking for a crack in the armor. I don't necessarily need to see Roger Moore get sloppy drunk, but you know, I think the flattering version is a confidence built on innate charm and good looks. I think that less flattering description of who he is, is a kind of.

Wouldn't simplicity without a whole lot underneath one of the things about Roger Moore is I'm just not sure how fucking interesting he is. Despite the conversation we've had. There's nothing that like intrigues me. There's nothing. They feel like I need to know more. I kind of feel like what you see is what you get and maybe that's a product of his culture.

There's something British about that kind of guardedness and maybe that's a product of just being a very, very handsome, attractive man having had the discussion we've already had about Roger Moore. I don't know what questions I'm left with. I don't know where my curiosity lies and I'm not sure if I'm shortchanging him or if it's just not there, but you

Amit: know what I mean?

Yeah. Yeah. But like you said, you were looking for the crack in the armor and maybe that's just a regular person that just happens to have lived a

Michael: public life. You might be right there. All right. Well, I think we've arrived. We're at our final category. The VanDerBeek named after James VanDerBeek, who famously said in varsity blues.

I don't want your life based on everything we've talked about. The big question is, do you want this life I'm at? And I have, uh, an agreement not to arrive at a conclusion to that question until we've had this conversation. Do you want Roger Moore's life. I

Amit: want you to answer this first, Michael. I am so on

Michael: the fence about this.

Okay. The short answer is I guess, why not? I think it would be exciting to play James Bond. I think it would be meaningful to commit your life to humanitarian work in the employment. Countries of the world and to see what kind of help you can offer children is rocket ship of stardom rose in the early sixties.

And I think he was a famous Hollywood celebrity during a period of Hollywood that I romanticized to some extent the sixties and seventies. So there's things about it that like on the surface seem not. The same time. I think he's a surprisingly forgettable celebrity, especially for somebody who was James Bond.

Before this conversation, I was talking with somebody in their twenties and, uh, they knew who Sean Connery was and they did not know who Roger Moore was. So I think he is going to be lost from the Canon except for the James Bond enthusiast. And I really wonder if the bond franchise will continue to be as important 10 years from now.

So when I think about orders, it all meme what'd you get out. Given that you were given some real natural talent, natural charm natural look. And opportunities. I don't think he squandered those gifts, but I'm also not overly impressed with how it all played out. There's nothing that stands out to me here.

And, you know, I don't always make a judgment about the meaningful newness of it. I started off by saying, why not? But then the other side of that is why, you know, I think I'm Elaine. No you're going now. I think I am. What about you? Where are you at? I like the

Amit: charm and the dapper. I think that's a fine way to be remembered.

And so if that's what people know you as both onscreen and offscreen, that's a good way to be interacting with other humans, whether the bond franchise survives, whether he is not remembered as well as Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan or whoever. I don't know if I really care about that. He did have the talents and he did have those spotlight moments that span decades, the tumultuous love life doesn't sit well.

The early marriages were Rocky and violent, but the others they're really, if you just take the other. To in isolation, they, they were long. I didn't see terrible signs of sort of not knowing yourself in those later years. Very wealthy. I don't know that I care about that after a certain level of comfort to your point, what's it all for?

Yeah. I think. Maybe it was just for the spotlight moments, maybe it's to use your fame and the character you played to twist that script. If you're doing that kind of work and you're saving 10 kids from being child soldiers, that could be enough to, to lay on your deathbed and be okay with

Michael: yeah, I think where I'm really torn.

Is balancing out the significant contributions in the humanitarian universe with the tumultuous love life, obviously as always, I only know so much, but there is something about the story of the marriages, where I really wonder what he's giving to the marriage and how. How important that is to him. And I know that on my death bed, I want to have been of service to strangers and to have tried to donate real energy and money and fortune and whatever to human rights in the world and shared equality.

But it is every bit as important to me to also have had high quality interpersonal relationships with the people I really really know. And it seems to me based on the available information, I'm not sure he ever really figured that out. You know, I know he had close friends where those friendships. Rich with love may maybe, but there's a shallowness at the interpersonal level that I'm perceiving and maybe I'm making that up, but that does not counterbalance the humanitarian work for me.

Amit: Yeah. I, I saw no evidence of the shallowness other than. The Rocky marriages. And I know he was close to several members of the Royal family and went to certain Royal weddings and all, but I don't know. I don't know anything about those close, personal, intimate

Michael: friendships. I didn't read, but, but the absence of data is also speaking to me here that I didn't hear Sean Connery or Michael Kane.

I didn't see testimonials from other famous British actors,

Amit: but I wouldn't give a shit. Maybe it was just,

Gavin

Michael: is next door. But that's my point. There may have been meaningful friendships. I don't see people talking about him that way. I see, I see people saying he's a fine guy, very charming to be around, but like that he brought love.

That he brought compassion. I don't want to discount the humanitarian work. Cause I think you have to have those qualities to do that kind of stuff, but there's an inner shell I perceive in Roger Moore that never fully gets penetrated. That to me, feels like a gap. And unless I see evidence to the contrary.

Yeah, I don't want that life, man. I don't want that life. I want connection.

Amit: Yeah. I just, I, I don't have the same intuition. Granted, we don't have that evidence of the intimate friendships and the connection and the possible transformation, but the things I listed, I'm gonna

Michael: go with a yes. Okay. You already?

Yes. I'm going no, I'm going to go with the S well, since you're saying yes, I feel like it's probably on you this time to take us out with a pitch to St. Peter at the pearly gates you game for

Amit: it. Yeah.

Michael: Um, you are Roger Moore. You've died. You've gone to heaven. You're at the pearly gates and there is St.

Peter and you have your opportunity to make your pitch for why you should be allowed in the floor. Is yours

Amit: St. Peter? I don't even know if I'm correct. And I know that you were just a proxy for making a case for a life being morally redemptive, but I am Roger Moore. I am sir. Roger Moore. I am best known for playing James Bond.

Exactly seven times. I entertained and charmed tens of millions, possibly hundreds of millions of people on screen. And off screen, I let them escape for two hours. At a time I was in Cannonball run. I was in boat trip. I had fun with it. And that's why I think I was here is that I had fun with it. I tried to let other people just have fun with it.

It being life. Let me here.

Michael: Thank you for listening to this episode of famous and gravy. If you're enjoying our show, please go to apple podcasts to rate and review. You can sign up for our mailing list@famousandgravy.com and you can follow us on Twitter at famous. Our show was co-created by Amik Kapore and may Michael Osborne mixing mastering and sound design by Morgan Honaker graphic designed by Brandon Burke and original music by Kevin Strang.

Thank you again for listening and hope to see you

Amit: next time.