Roger Moore, the veteran actor best known for portraying James Bond on the big screen in the 1970s and 1980s, died in Switzerland on Tuesday.
He was 89 years old.
According to the star’s children, who released a statement confirming their father’s death on Twitter, Moore lost his life to a “short but brave battle with cancer.”
Reads the opening of this statement, which was written by Moore’s three kids and shared on Moore’s official social media account:
“With the heaviest of hearts, we must share the awful news that our father, Sir Roger Moore, passed away today. We are all devastated.”
It continues:
The love with which he was surrounded in his final days was so great it cannot be quantified in words alone.
We know our own love and admiration will be magnified many times over, across the world, by people who knew him for his films, his television shows and his passionate work for UNICEF which he considered to be his greatest achievement.
And it concluded as follows:
The affection our father felt whenever he walked on to a stage or in front of a camera buoyed him hugely and kept him busy working into his 90th year, through to his last appearance in November 2016 on stage at London’s Royal Festival Hall.
The capacity crowd cheered him on and off stage, shaking the very foundation of the building just a short distance from where he was born.
Thank you Pops for being you, and for being so very special to so many people.
A private funeral for Moore will be held in Monaco.
The death comes nearly a year after Moore lost his stepdaughter Christina Knudsen to cancer. She was 47 years old at the time.
Moore took over the iconic character of James Bond in 1973’s Live and Let Die.
Overall, he played Agent 007 seven times (more than any other actor), concluding with his role in A View to a Kill in 1985.
His James Bond resume is comprised in total by the following films:
– Live and Let Die (1973)
– The Man with the Golden Gun (1974)
– The Spy Who Loved Me (1977)
– Moonraker (1979)
– For Your Eyes Only (1981)
– Octopussy (1983)
– A View to a Kill (1985)
On the television side, Moore was best known for the shows Persuaders and The Saint.
But it’s as Bond (James Bond) that Moore will be most fondly remembered.
“Anyone watching could sense that Moore’s Bond cared more about the gadgets and the girls than the mission,” Jason Horowitz wrote for the Washington Post, adding:
“Moore seemed to know that trying to control the mission was futile. You just had to go with it and smile…
“In Moore’s movies, there is none of the realistic grit or psychological tension bookended by [Sean] Connery and Daniel Craig, or the trying-too-hard of Pierce Brosnan and Timothy Dalton.
“Who else but Moore could accidentally inhale some treasure out of a belly dancer’s belly button, make a funny face and then get into a fist/karate-chop fight?
“Sure, he sometimes missed the face of a guy who nevertheless went flying from the phantom punch.
“But once you bought in, that was a whole lot better than watching the expensive explosions that have destroyed many latter-day Bond movies.”
Moore became a Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and eventually became as loved and respected for his work with children’s charities as for his work on the big screen.
We send our condolences to his friends, family members and loved ones.
May Roger Moore rest in peace.
