On May 25th, 2017, it was dancing as usual at Adath Israel as these accompanying pictures indicate if not illustrate. Don's Thursday classes (beginner at 7 and intermediate at 8 through 12) were in operation. But, a recurring event over the years at the end of May was in the memory of several dancers that night. A persistent rumor, strengthened each year that the cartons of Ice Cream, cookies and candies made their late May appearance, was that this "celebration" really didn't involve the activities of Israeli dancing. Something about honoring a long dead author. And the author certainly didn't have anything to do with Israeli dancing or any other dancing. It's not like anyone made a specific public announcement of such. There was no singing of Happy Birthday or shouts of well wishes. Kind of odd for this one night of Israeli dancing you could say. Sure enough, with May 25 being the last Thursday dance date during May, 2017, the ice cream and goodies made a reappearance but this time with the inclusion of some literature finally explaining what this celebration was all about.

This web site tries to cover all the activities of the various classes of Israeli dancing in the greater Philadelphia area. Some 250 scripts make up the content of this website, thediskcoordinator.com. There is even a section where non dance oriented scripts are available not to mention some coverage of other types of dance events. It is the policy of this website to try to print any article (script) that is not virtuperative or inflamatory although the editors reserve the right of refusal. One of our editors was present this night at Adath Israel and took it upon himself to verify the name of the individual responsible for this annual late May event and also to secure a copy of the documentation provided that night through Email.

Here's what we've done which you will see below in this script. We contacted the individual responsible, who requested anonymity which we will respect, and allowed him to write his reasoning for the creation of this event. Below that we are publishing the two documents that accompanied the food. The documents are set next to each other. It was clear that one of the documents could be embellished and our historical editor has written an article contrasting the two authors involved in the written documentation alluded to above. We've added a famous TV theme to get you in the mood (although there are buttons to turn this off). Throw in a few pictures taken that night and you have this script.

So, we start this by displaying the anonymous explanation of this previously mysterious late May event.

From the anonymous organizer of this event. When Hora Aviv was in operation I used to look forward to the Memorial day weekend when that camp would occur. Unfortunately, in 2008, an impending major medical procedure scheduled for June made it clear that it would be psychologically (and perhaps medically) impossible to attend Hora Aviv for that year. So, in an attempt to lift my spirits, on the way to Don's session on the last Thursday in May of 2008 (May 29th, 2008 to be exact, right after the Memorial day weekend when Hora Aviv was at Gynwydd Mercy College for that year) I picked up some cartons of Breyer's ice cream and some other kosher goodies and set this up for the dancers that night.

Today it is not unusual to have birthday celebrations throughout the year for any local Israeli dance session - in fact Beth Sholom and Germantown have set aside a weekly session per month for this - but at that time birthday celebrations were still rather rare. So, several of the dancers asked me whether it was my birthday. And, if not, what was the occasion? I was embarrassed to indicate the real reason for this so I did give a reason that I was aware of that coincided (being one day off) with the date.

A little background on this. When I was 14 or so, I got some type of illness that affected me for several years. At first, I was home bound although after a few months I could resume a limited schedule which included classes. Prior to being ill, on the recommendation of my then 9th grade English instructor, I had bought several books, still unread, by a British author who had just gained notariety for having one of his books included in the list of President Kennedy's ten favorite books which had just been published in Look or Life magazine. [Ed Note: This reference is to Hugh Sidey's article in Life magazine in 1961] In fact, as I would find out years later, this book was the only fictional entry on Kennedy's list. I knew nothing about the author - in this I was similar to almost everybody in this country except Kennedy - and couldn't even pronounce his first name. I didn't know anything about the plots. All I remember is my English teacher saying how impressed he was by the wordsmanship of this author.

Perhaps it was being ill, perhaps being homebound, but from the first word of this author's sixth book - this was the first of his series that I tried to read and had the oddly sounding title of Dr No - I was hooked and the author, Ian Fleming, became and has remained my favorite author. May 28th, 2008 happened to be the Centenary of Fleming's birth. Around the world, especially in Fleming's native England, celebrations had taken place the day before my setting up the food at Don's session that Thursday. To answer someone's question as to why the added food, I flippently answered that this was to celebrate the Fleming centenary, the hundreth anniversary of his birth.

Annually, since 2008, with the exception of one year we've been doing this. This year, though, in an exchange with Don - I normally Email or phone him requesting that he bring in his Ice cream scoops - Don reminded me that Roger Moore, one of the actors to play Fleming's hero over the years, had died two days before. So, we extended this occasion by including documentation on Fleming and on Roger Moore although emphasizing Moore's portrayal of another fictional character.
[Ed Note: Above and below this anonymous discussion are pictures taken on May 25th, 2017 showing the festivities of the evening]

Shown here are pictures of the documentation given out at Don's that evening. If you were able to expand either of the pictures, one assumes you could read it. But, to make everything easier, we have obtained the text of the presentations and present them directly below. On the left is a one page discussion about the life of Ian Fleming. To the right is the two page discussion of Roger Moore who died two days before the session. You can stop the music by

Welcome to the annual Ian Fleming day (Born May 28, 1908) held annually at Don’s session at the end of May. This started as a joke several years ago as an excuse to bring in Ice Cream and other summer goodies for parched dancers, but at least one person has started to take this seriously and created this documentation of Fleming’s life. Some information about our hero. Fleming was the grandson of financier, Robert Fleming, who made his fortune investing in American Railroads during the middle 1800s. Robert Fleming’s son (and Ian’s father) was a member of Parliament and close associate of Winston Churchill before being killed in World War I Ian, second of four boys, was eight when his father died. Throughout much of his life – into his early fifties - he would play second fiddle to his elder brother, Peter, their Mother’s favorite. By his twenties, Peter had become a rather famous journalist known for world-wide serious travel adventures. Ian on the other hand became somewhat famous for various affairs with women – one, it was rumored, caused his expulsion from a military college – although to be fair Ian also had stints with Reuters as a journalist intermingled with attempts to emulate his grandfather as a financial broker. The outbreak of World War II in 1939 would prove beneficial to Ian then aged 31. He became the assistant to the director of British Naval Intelligence possibly through the assistance of Churchill. In this role he was able to use his creativity in real life situations. One example: the famous “Man Who Never Was” espionage plan that helped fool the Germans per the invasion of Sicily was originally proposed by Fleming although he had nothing to do with the plan once it became operational. During the war Fleming visited Jamaica and although it rained the entire time he was there, he vowed to build a house to live there post war. This house named Goldeneye was built on Jamaica’s North Shore and is famous as the location where Fleming wrote his novels. Today it is a major tourist attraction in Jamaica easily accessible by flying into Jamaica’s Ian Fleming airport near Ocho Rios. Post war Fleming spent 10 months of the year as a journalist/columnist in London and two months during winter at Goldeneye. Awaiting his marriage to Ann O’Neill in 1952 – and we don’t have enough paper to detail the many facets of this complicated relationship – Fleming embellished on the war-time operations he was familiar with to write a book a year, until his death on August 12, 1964, chronicling the adventures of a somewhat boring and limited British counter intelligence agent who just happened to have a Nelsonian touch when absolutely needed. Jamaica even provided the name for these book’s hero. Like many British nationals, Fleming was a birder – a bird watcher. On his desk at Goldeneye, within easy reach, was the bible of Caribbean bird watching written in 1936 – modified in 1948 and 1960 – by James Bond, an ornithologist at Philadelphia’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Fleming supposedly confiscated this name for his hero. In this way Fleming’s books have a local connection. No doubt, for many of the dancers at this session - given the proximity of the abovementioned museum - the name James Bond denotes avian images of the Jamaican Owl, the Giant Kingbird and the Roseate Spoonbill. For others, including this writer, the name James Bond denotes images of Honey Rider and Pussy Galore. [sorry!] You may have heard that the Fleming books ultimately were made into a set of movies but today we celebrate this author whose posthumous popularity far outstrips that of his brother.

We thought we would use this space to remember Roger Moore. Moore died on Tuesday, May 24, at the age of 89. He played James Bond in seven movies from 1973’s Live and Let Die to 1985’s A View To A Kill. At age 18, in the last year of WW II, Moore was drafted into the British Army. By the time he was trained the War was over. In what seems so coincidental, Moore was given a commission and assigned to shepherding British entertainers around Germany as they would entertain the occupying British troops. With his good looks, Moore was a model during the fifties but dabbled in acting. He was friends with Sean Connery and Michael Caine and others in London as all were trying to break into show business. As opposed to the others, Moore decided to travel across the ocean to Hollywood to see if he could extend his budding career. This was at a time when Warner Brothers was producing a set of male buddy serials led by Maverick which became a hit on Sunday nights. This show shot the leads of this series, James Garner and Jack Kelly (but especially Garner), into orbit as television stars. The idea of Maverick was morphed into different locales and time periods as Warner Brothers produced such shows as Seventy Seven Sunset Strip, Sugarfoot, Cheyenne, Bourbon Street Beat and the Alaskans – all similar in concept to Maverick and all aired on ABC. The shows were all created by Roy Huggins who would later create the Fugitive, another iconic television show from the sixties. Moore was assigned to the Alaskans and for a season played one of the characters. Moore himself has said that the writers would take one of the Maverick scripts, change the location and names among other things and a new episode of the Alaskans would be born. The Alaskans cancellation coincided with Garner’s decision to quit Maverick. Into this breech Warner Brothers shoved Moore who became Beauregard Maverick (known as Beau) for the final season of the series. It is said that both he and Sean Connery were up for the part with Moore being selected. It would not be the last time that these friends were involved in a similar part. After Maverick, Moore was signed to do a rather unique British television series. The origin of this series is quite dramatic as we can relate. The son of British missionaries in China returns to England in the early 1920’s. This individual, Leslie Charteris, finds he has a gift for fiction writing – but of a certain sort. He creates a gang of would be semi Robin Hoods who steal from the rich – especially those who have become rich by illegal or mostly illegal means – and returns a bit to those who were “robbed” while keeping most of the stolen loot themselves. This group is led by a relatively well-to-do, very handsome, very athletic gentleman who goes by two names, Simon Templar or the Saint (which you get by a combination of first and last name initials). Charteris writes multiple Templar books in the late 20’s, early 30’s and as related in the books the group disbands and the books concentrate on Templar’s activities as he travels around the world as a part-time investigator, private detective and avenger. These books are very successful and in the late 1930’s Hollywood starts a series of films involving the Saint. In many cases the movie scripts replicate the contents of the books. George Sanders, then a well known movie idol who was born in Russia, played the part of Simon Templar in 5 of these movies. It is interesting following the Saint – both in print and on film - at this point. Both Charteris, who is continuing to write novels at a pace of several a year, and the movie scriptwriters aim Templar against fascist elements in England and the United States. In Hollywood it is said that imitation is the greatest form of flattery. Hollywood creates the Falcon series of films that are like the Saint movies but with a different lead character moniker. Interestingly enough, the first of the Falcon movies stars George Sanders – about the same time he is also doing the Saint movies – until Sanders quits both the Saint and Falcon series with Hugh Sinclair taking over as the Saint and Tom Conway, Sanders real life brother, taking over as the Falcon. The Saint next appears on Wartime radio. With many of the scriptwriters and entertainment industry personnel in the armed forces, American radio looks for easy serials to produce during the war. The Saint is a natural given that by this point Charteris has written 22 or 23 books (he would eventually write 90 books on the character). Using Charteris as the principal scriptwriter and his books as material for a set of serials, Vincent Price plays the Saint on Radio at the end of WWII (1945-1948). We’ve given you this history of the Saint because by 1962, as Charteris by then has written some 70 novels, the Saint and this character’s entourage of books and material comes calling again. ITV, an independent British channel, casts Roger Moore to play this title character – Simon Templar - in a TV series that will run from 1962 through 69. This is a role of a lifetime for Moore since the character compliments his own personae. Moore takes it even further by acting as producer and part owner of the show. Homage to the Saint films of years past is accomplished by having this TV show’s music theme incorporate a portion of the older film series music theme. By 1969 when the TV series ends Moore is well known throughout the world as ITV (and apparently Moore funding this independently) syndicates the show around the world. In the US the Saint was part of syndicated and network TV throughout the late 60’s. Ironically, many women made sure to tune in at the appointed time as Moore duplicated James Garner’s success in terms of sex appeal. By the early 1970’s, the James Bond movies were having their own problems. Sean Connery left, then returned and again left the series. His replacement for one film, George Lazenby, also quit the series and he needed to play James Bond for only one film to say goodby. It was clear that it would be difficult for any actor to replace Connery, a powerful actor and presence who had stamped his personality and looks on Ian Fleming’s character. But the producers of the Bond movies decided to pick Moore to continue the series. He already had a built in audience – those who followed the Saint series – and thanks to the years of playing the Saint he already was familiar with the needs and altitudes of an actor involved in a continuing movie series.

It's hard to believe that by birth both Leslie Charteris, creator of the Saint, and Ian Fleming, creator of James Bond, were comtemporaries with a little more than a year separating their births. Charteris was born on May 12, 1907 with Fleming's birth a year later on May 28th, 1908. Discounting this, very little else is similar in their respective lives. Below we will transverse the years contrasting the activities of Charteris versus Fleming.

Fleming's background should have been one of privilege being born into a prominent (and rich) family in England. His grandfather, Robert Fleming, may have been the richest man in England at the turn of the last century. The Fleming name in itself referenced one of the Scottish clans with the clan origins going back to the Norman invasion and the French knight Le Fleming (interesting enough Fleming's choice of the name Bond for his hero had a similar origin - the Norman conquest - but he found that out later).

Charteris was born to a Chinese father and British mother and his real name, Leslie Bowyer-Lin, publicly indicated this. In the strict British autocracy of the time, this would prove to be a stigma in that society and Charteris changed his last name shortly after he arrived in England to attend prep school even though Charteris' Chinese father was a physician who claimed ties to one of the Chinese dynasties. Supposedly the son chose the name Charteris at random from a London phone book when he was 19.

Fleming's Mother, Evelyn Beatrice Saint Croix Rose, grew up in London and Fleming was the second of 4 boys. Charteris' Mother was British and we believe we read somewhere that she was the daughter of missionaries. Charteris was one of two sons.

It's clear in hindsight that both men had a propensity for writing with each having created during his lifetime a famous character and each having written multiple novels pertaining to such. But in Charteris' case it was clear that he had a talent for this while still in prep school where he sold several stories while quite young. Charteris immediately threw himself into fiction writing and it seems that he produced several novels of varying themes by the age of 21.

In Fleming's case, there was no question about his creativity, but his writing when young consisted of reporting generally for the Reuter's news service. This type of writing had a need for terse concise copy and Fleming developed a style of no nonsense, humorless, straight to the point reportage. This style would influence his writings later in life.

By the age of 25 Charteris is somewhat famous as a novelist. In 1928, at age 21, he writes a novel about a devil may care daredevil named Simon Templar (alias the Saint) who moves between a fine line of legal and illegal activities in meting out justice to those who have abused and cheated others. To add to the devil may care attitude, Charteris allows his character to wisecrack, insult and joke from one adventure to another. In addition, Templar on his own is already wealthy (thanks to his deceased parents) and he solicits the help of a few other socialites - to create a type of gang - in pursuing his activities. One of the gang members, Patricia Holm, would provide a love interest for Templar during the first few books of the series. For the time - the late 20's early 30's - the description of the romantic activities described between Templar and Holm would be considered very avant-garde.

In 1929 Charteris writes another book this time detailing the activities of an inspector of Scotland Yard, Detective Claud Teal. In this book about Teal the Saint is not mentioned. Charteris' next book "Enter The Saint" unites the two characters with Teal trying to jail Templar as Templar and his gang are involved in several illegalities in an attempt to right a wrong.

By 1932, at the age of 25, Charteris leaves England to move to the United States - specifically California's Palm Springs after a brief stay in New York city - where he will continue during the rest of the thirties to churn out Saint books while also becoming a Hollywood part/time screen writer. Charteris, in a kind of biography, indicated that he arrived in the US with just $25 in his pocket. But, we at this web site assume this move to the states is made possible by (1) the success in sales of his Saint novels (2) and the inability of British society at the time to accept his mixed race success. Whether making money or not, one can assume that Charteris would have found it difficult to penetrate British society at the time given his Chinese background. Perhaps this made the US look appealing although it seems that he entered on a 6 month work visa. Over the next 10 years or so, Charteris works 6 months in the US and then repeats the process by returning to Britain and repeating the procedure.

As Charteris leaves Britain, he is recently married. But he will be divorced soon afterward. Through his life he will have four marriages with the last and longest to Audrey Long in 1952. In studying her life, it appears that the fourth time for him, and the second time for her, was the charm as she quit acting and both dedicated thenselves to their marriage

Fleming's efforts for Reuters move him through Europe during the early 30's. He gets to practice and perfect his language skills (already proficent in French and German) while in Russia where he reports on the show trials of the Stalinist era. His most significant assignment involved his covering the arrest and trial of several Vickers employees (Vickers was a well known British armaments company) in Russia in 1933 accused of spying for Britain. Ironically, it is suggested by several of Fleming's biographers that he himself may have been working undercover for British intelligence while posing as the Reuter's correspondent.

While it seems that Fleming was well liked within Reuters, the position apparently paid very little. This created a financial problem for Fleming that was exacerbated by the provisions of his Father's will. Everything moved to his Mother until her remarriage or death, His Mother, although having several affairs and at least one child out of wedlock, refused to make any of her romantic affairs legal. Since Ian was the least favorite of her four sons because of his lifestyle at the time, Fleming saw little financial support directed to him. This forced Fleming to change careers around 1936 and become a rather unsuccessful stock broker.

While Charteris described avant garde sexual matters in his books (for the time) as described above, Fleming lived it, and how (and now you know why his Mother frowned on his lifestyle). Multiple affairs with women were the norm. Sexual escapades galore in multile settings. But marriage is not an option as far as Fleming is concerned as women were disposable to his way of thinking. Yet, late in the 1930's he meets Anne Charteris (no relation to Leslie) who he will have a relationship for the rest of his life. First purely sexual, then through S&M practices that both enjoyed and finally in 1952 as his wife. Anne was someone who Fleming couldn't live without but both had difficulty living with each other as both had multiple affairs in and out of marriage.

The late 1930's show a world moving toward war. Charteris is for the most part living in California and Fleming is making London home. Charteris is married although this marriage will end in divorce. However the divorce was not the result of serial sexcapades. Nothing we've read indicates any bad habits acquired by Charteris except an abnormal need to make money which most people would consider a positive and not a negative. Fleming on the other hand, even though he has already met his soul mate, continues to have affair after affair. He has already acquired the vice of heavy smoking that would eventually kill him three decades later. While he would in later years become an equally heavy drinker, even at that time Fleming is known to bar hop in London on a regular basis.

1939 would see Europe at war. For Charteris the war created an odd, but complex problem. The US started to constrain emigration and nationalization and non citizens could be subjected to expulsion from the country. Charteris' first attempts to attain American citizenship go for nought as he is 50% asian (through his Chinese father) and the laws, blatantly discrimatory at the time, precluded citizenship for those having a 50% or higher asian lineage. Facing deportation back to England he is able in one way or the other to get Hiram Johnson, a senator from California, to submit to and get passed by Congress a private law providing Charteris with American citizenship which President Roosevelt signed in 1942. No doubt part of this was the resiult of his popularity as a novelist but we suspect this also was the result of the popularity of the Saint as a movie character. In the space of two years, 1939 through 1941, five Saint movies starring George Sanders had been produced and from a politician's point of view it couldn't have been the smartest move to allow the author of a series of popular books now being made into movies to be deported.

Safely ensconced in California, Charteris spends the war years writing more Saint books and being a screen writer for the movie industry. Later into the war, in 1945, he also becomes involved in moving the Saint onto radio where Vincent Price plays the lead. This radio series will continue post war until 1948.

For Fleming the war in essence changes his life. In some way he is recruited to become the assistant to John Godfrey, the Director of British Naval intelligence beginning late 1939 through the duration of the war. This position allows him to use the terseness of thought and writing honed through his Reuter's employment with his natural creativity. He becomes invaluable to his boss in directing projects while at the same time having a front role seat to the world of espionage between countries. It is also because of this service that he first visits Jamaica during the war for a conference and vows to build a home when the war ends in what was then a British colony.

As a British official, Fleming also visits the US on several occasions during the war years. As a member of the intelligence community, he meets other American intelligence officials including Bill Donovan, head of the OSS (the OSS is a precursor to the CIA). Many of these ex intelligence officials, like Ivar Bruce and Ernest Cuneo, will become fast friends and advocates for Fleming post war

Charteris continues to write Saint books into the post war period. With the Saint on radio, there is a whole new generation of fans to entertain. However, similar to Fleming but not to the degree, Charteris also dabbles in other things. Charteris was reportedly a member of mensa and spent much time in attempting to create a universal sign language. Post war he apparently wrote a food and cuisine column although this web site can't seem to research which magazine it was.

Fleming's post war life involves securing a journalist/columnist/editorial position with the Sunday Times of London. By 1948, he had fulfilled his promise to build an estate in Jamaica, Goldeneye, and one of the provisions of his journalism contract was that he would have a two month vacation each year during January and February to visit that island.

And Fleming's social life continues to be as unstructured as it was pre-war. The great love of his life, Anne, marries one man who dies on the battlefield in North Africa. She marries a second man who runs a publishing empire. All the while having trysts with Fleming whenever possible, several of which occur in Jamaica while Fleming is there on his yearly vacation. Anne even becomes pregnant by Fleming several times during this period (The first instance resulting in a stillborn child and the second resulting in Casper, Fleming's only child) which eventually brings about a forced divorce for her in 1952.

Anne travels to Jamaica in late '51/early '52 to be with Fleming at his estate in Jamaica. By now, with Anne pregnant with his only child - and everyone knowing this in both England and Jamaica - Fleming finally proposes and Anne agrees to marriage. It is while waiting for Anne's divorce, their marriage and the arrival of his son that Fleming finally sits down and emulates Charteris by writing a novel. But this novel is very different than Charteris' works. It embellishes an event in Fleming's life that occurred in Portugal during the war so it is somewhat reality based. This novel's hero is very limited in both interests and personality, very straight-arrow as a government employee should be, again being different than Charteris' hero. There is absolutely no humor in this book but the scope is broader than the usual Charteris work. Fleming's hero is literarily tortured but prevails, again differing with Charteris' hero who may face death, but not torture before final victory. Even the title denotes a difference: Charteris usually titled his works with Saint as an entry i.e Meet the Saint, The Saint plays with Fire, The Saint in New York etc while Fleming's book is titled Casino Royale supposedly using the name of the fictional casino in France where much of the action takes place.

It takes over a year to put Casino Royale into print. Fleming uses the services of William Plomar, an editor at the Jonathon Cape publishing house; an author himself and someone Fleming had been cultivating for years by having occasional lunches, to finally get his book into print. While somewhat well received (although many panned the torture scene), the book sold to a limited audience.

Meanwhile the early 50's saw Charteris writing his books in California and then ultimately in Florida. His American publisher of the past, Triangle books, had at first been the reprint arm of Reynal & Hitchcock until being sold to Doubleday and Company in 1939. By 1949, Triangle ceases to exist. The entirety of the Saint books move to the aptly named Fiction Publishing company, which we think is also a subsidiary reprint company owned by Doubleday.

But changes were coming to how Charteris was to advance his novels about Simon Templar. Postwar he had experimented with a magazine entitled "The Saint's Choice" in which he and several other authors would provide stories. We assume Charteris' contribution was a new Saint story (although to be fair many of these Saint stories were written by others with Charteris just stamping his name on it) but we have no information on what the other contributor's provided although some research indicates that most of the other contributors' stories had been published somewhere else before showing up in this magazine.

The Saint's Choice was published during 1946 & 1947. By 1953, Charteris returns to this genre with a similar concept: The Saint Detective magazine. From 1953 through 1967, generally once a month, this magazine (renamed to the Saint Mystery Magazine and then to the Saint Magazine) published a short (or continuing) story about Simon Templar with additional stories by other authors. It's motto: Some Old Some New should indicate the extent of the writing.

Of course, this process of having others write Saint stories was not lost on Charteris. He took advantage of this ghost writing as more and more Saint stories non authored by Charteris were made available to the public. In many cases Charteris contribution to these stories was to make the Saint seem more irreverent and more sarcastic than originally written as the character confronted the villians.

In Fleming's case two separate forces drove his writings over the 1950's. At first Fleming used activities he was familiar with from his wartime experience. Moonraker, with its nuclear tipped missile, was straight out of the German V2 attacks during the previous war. In this Fleming was very insightful. The British security acts - called the Official Secrets act - precluded discussion of secrets from World War II. But, fictionalized accounts of what happened were judged to be legal and allowed and this was the line that Fleming followed. So, as Charteris does less and less writing - needing him to be less and less creative - Fleming is honing his writing technique by creating more and more creative scenarios requiring more research on his part.

We mention this type of divergence to make the point. The Saint was a creature of his time of creation, the 1930's. He could wisecrack his way into battle with a variety of crooks, both as petty criminals and every now and then with more exotic financial gurus who perhaps were making money supplying armament to the various sides of a coming war. As far as we can read Templar is not refocused specifically against the Communist menace during the post war era. And Charteris' increasing use of other writers wouldn't have allowed this anyway as most of these writers were interested in providing murder mystery stories to the growing Saint literature.

On the other hand Fleming's hero, James Bond, is a product of the 50's cognizant of the Russian threat to society. Additionally, given Fleming's distaste of the Germans (his father Valentine had been killed during World War I not to mention his own experience in WWII) most of the villians working for the Russians were of German extraction and Fleming was sure to put the normal negative characteristics of German psychology (as he saw it) into these creations.

Another divergence pertained to health. Charteris would survive into the 1990s - he died at age 86 suffering the normal effects of old age. Side effects from vices - if there were any -did not seem to affect his quality of life, Additionally, his solid marriage to Audrey Long must have made his latter years very satisfying. On the other hand, Fleming's vices severely affected his life from 1961 until his death. It affected his creativity and production starting from the late 50's. His excessive smoking vice was now compounded by excessive drinking - it was said that by 1961 he was effectively a drunk downing a bottle a day. As opposed to a stable marital life, Fleming's multiple affairs in Jamaica somewhat alienated him from his family and British society (and we should note that Anne was no slouch in her own violations of normal marital decorum).

We arrive at the 1960's looking at both authors. Events are on the move that will make both more successful financially. In Charteris' case plans are afoot to move the Saint onto Television. Keep in mind that the Saint already had been the subject of 9 movies (a tenth was in production in France in 1960) over the years and for three years had been a radio program during the middle to late 1940's.

But TV calls! Television was expanding somewhat in Britain although far from the prevalent influence that cable brings today. For many years television was a monopoly in England where the BBC held sway. In 1955 ITC started broadcasting as a competitor to the BBC. While BBC was commercial free (funded by a tax on every TV set in England) ITC followed the American model of commercial TV. But to be successful, ITC had to provide commercially popular shows to get an audience. Someone thought that a TV program involving the Saint, at first using the content of the already existing Saint books and stories, might just work. Ironically, the expected date for this Saint series to air was the beginning of the 1962 TV season - Fall'62 - the same time period that the first of the James Bond movies was to be released in England. One assumes that many actors were given screen tests for both parts. We know that this was the case for Roger Moore who was in the running to play Bond and did land the job of Templar in this TV show which he would star in from 1962 through 69.

Below we will relate the process of getting Bond on the movie screen but we do want to indicate the differences between the authors in dealing with the respective media extensions of their characters. While Charteris was very cavalier in having other authors supply material for his later books as long as his name was attributed to this material, he was very vigilant in keeping his name in front of the audience. The Saint logo - the stick man figure - was something we assume that he insisted on for the television program. He even had a fight with the composer of the TV Saint theme forcing the composer to add some notes from the Saint movie theme from years past into this new composition. He then compounded the issue by forcing the producers of the show to add his name to the TV show credits as the creator of this old theme even though that was not in fact true. The early episodes of the TV program did in fact use some story lines of the books and Charteris' name was prominently displayed as the basis of the script. There is nothing wrong with this! It just shows that throughout his life he never wavered in his attempt to take credit for all aspects of the character he created.

The attempt to get James Bond onto the screen was much more difficult. In fact, it resulted in the lawsuit that created much uncertainly and aggravation in Fleming's life. During the 50's as the books became more popular, Bond became the subject of British comic strips where the books would be serialized in various British papers. BBC radio started to dramatize the books in radio programs. Several times it seemed that this goal would be within reach. At one time it seemed as if Alfred Hitchcock might be interested although, in hindsight, this seems questionable. But in the end Fleming's hope to move the character to the screen - either TV or film - remained elusize.

However, there was one exception to the indifference of movie and TV to Fleming's books and hero. In the United States the first book, Casino Royale, was produced live on CBS in 1955 starring Barry Newman as the American agent Jimmy Bond, with Peter Lorre as the villian and Linda Christian as Vesper Lynd. While this production somewhat stayed faithful to the book's plot (although some things had to be changed as this was live TV), there certainly was no ground swell to adapt the other novels to TV and this one apppearance of James Bond quickly faded from memory (although it does answer the trivia question as to who was the first actor to play this part).

Ultimately, Fleming was introduced to Kevin McClory and Jack Whittingham. All three came up with a story line of a hijacked Hbomb and a sinister organization's attempt to blackmail the Nato countries to recover this weapon before it was detonated. Fleming used these ideas to independently publish the 10th book in the Bond series, Thunderball. This resulted in a plagiarism lawsuit against Fleming by the other two and the court case, started in 1961, dragged on for two years. The pressure of the lawsuit - and the subtle deterioration of his reputation because of this - surely led to his first heart attack in 1961. This wasn't helped by the 80 or so cigarettes he smoked daily and the bottle of booze he drank each day. And, it certainly wasn't helped by the difficulties between his wife and himself over the various affairs both engaged in. One other thing to note here. Although for many years Charteris had been using other writer's material, he took the precaution of paying for the rights to this material and was never sued as far as we know.

This lawsuit against Fleming occurred while the team of Harry Saltzman and Albert Broccoli tried to get funding to buy the movie rights from Fleming to make the first James Bond movie. The character starring in the Bond books was so different from Simon Templar - no humor, raw violence and even rawer sex,a type of involved policeman - that it was thought by many in the movie industry that the transformation of Bond to the screen was impossible. Nevertheless, Saltzman and Broccoli ultimately secured the film rights from Fleming with the backing of United Artists, a big Hollywood film studio at that time. However, Saltzman and Broccoli's initial idea of starting the series by filming Thunderball had to be cut short because of the aforementioned lawsuit. They would start with Dr No first.

The screen tests to play the lead seemed to involve almost every British actor of note including the aforementioned Roger Moore who would go on to do the Saint as indicated above. Eventually all the players in the proposed film would end up in Jamaica to do the filming during the winter of 1962 where Fleming already was situated enjoying his more than two month vacation on the island. By this point Fleming's contract with the Sunday Times had changed and he had even less constraints on him as far as requirements of time spent in the newspaper's office.

While Fleming did visit the filming locations and we're sure that he really enjoyed talking to and being in the presence of Ursula Andress, Fleming did not get involved with the film in anyway similar to how Charteris involved himself in the Saint TV series. No music discussions! No credit for script suggestion. Most of the early Bond movies have only limited mentions of Fleming's name. In Dr No, for instance, the beginning credits indicate that the film is about Ian Fleming's Dr No. The credit for the screenwriters include a mention that the novel is by Ian Fleming. By Goldfinger only the beginning indication of "Ian Fleming's Goldfinger" is a reminder of who created the character and the underlying book. Whether or not this hands-off approach by Fleming was the result of his illnesses or just his philosophy, it seems to be very different than the approach of Charteris to anything involving his creation.

Charteris would have an additional 30 years of life over Fleming who died on Aug 12, 1964 at the age of 55. Charteris would live to age 86 and die on April 15, 1993.