60 years of James Bond espionage thrills

October 5 is international James Bond Day, a celebration of all things 007. This year also commemorates 60 years of the high octane espionage franchise, whi ch includes 25 official EON movies and two unsanctioned feature films.

The first James Bond movie, Dr No, was released on October 5, 1962 – 60 years ago.

It starred a young Sean Connery in his breakthrough performance as the womanising, suave, hard drinking and lethally violent British secret agent, known by the code number 007.

Author Ian Fleming was not keen on Connery for the role, calling him “an overdeveloped stuntman”. Instead he preferred David Niven, but he turned the part down fearing he was too old for it – he would later star as Bond in the unofficial spoof, Casino Royale in 1967.

However, when Dr No was a box office hit, Fleming changed his opinion, in fact so much so that he would write details into future Bond novels that gave the secret agent partial Scottish ancestry.

Connery would return to the part seven times, including the unsanctioned, non- EON Productions movie, Never Say Never Again.

In all, Bond has been played by seven actors on the silver screen including George Lazenby, Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.

There are 27 James Bond movies, 25 of which are official EON canon.

Bond has been played by seven actors including Roger Moore, Timothy Dalton, Pierce Brosnan and Daniel Craig.