Ten Things You May Not Have Known About James Bond

Following in the steps of my recent James Bond movie reviews, I thought I would include a few bits of trivia about the whole Bond scene that are somewhat interesting (to me, at least) and are probably unknown to you.

1. The name "James Bond" is the name of an ornithologist. And a boring one at that.

The author of the original James Bond novels, Ian Fleming, got the name for his iconic character from the author of a book called "Birds of the West Indies." Fleming apparently chose this name because of how boring, flat, and basic it sounded.

2. Not all the Bond girls were always girls.

Although she really wasn't a main character, one of the girls from For Your Eyes Only had a sex change only a couple of years prior to landing the role. Director John Glen said she was "one of the prettiest girls on set."

3. Bond has a drink every 24.3 minutes.

Throughout the course of the 22-movie series, James Bond has had over 115 drinks, with a mean time of 24.3 minutes between each one. He doesn't go without style though: he's only had one beer of all those drinks. The rest are champagne, wine, and, of course, vodka martinis.

4. The movies were rated PG for twenty-five years running.

From Dr. No in 1962 up until License to Kill in 1989, all of the Bond movies were rated PG...although I'm sure there is plenty of controversy over this, seeing as how nudity snuck its way into a couple of the films along the way. For the past twenty years, the movies have remained a steady PG-13, and they plan to stay that way.

5. Die Another Day contains references to every single Bond film before it.

This movie was released in 1962: forty years after the first Bond movie and fifty after the first Bond book was released. As a tip of the hat to the franchise, the producers put in both subtle and obvious references to every single 007 movie from the past forty years, and even had Bond posing as an ornithologist (see #1) as his cover, giving kudos to Ian Fleming's work as well.