When Connery departed for the second time, EON recast Bond with Roger Moore, the star of the 1960s British spy TV series The Saint. Following Diamonds Are Forever, Connery once again stepped away from playing Bond until. This is yet another movie where Bond faces off against Blofeld, who is now played by Charles Gray and is using plastic surgery to create a bunch of look-alike decoys of himself. Still, this movie offers the first true appearance of his longtime nemesis Ernst Stavro Blofield (played by the great Donald Pleasence), the SPECTRE leader who at this point had only been teased in previous installments.Ĭonnery retired from playing Bond after YOLT, but when George Lazenby, the actor who succeeded him, left after a single film, EON lured Connery back. The lawsuit was settled out of court but will eventually lead to some Bond peculiarities down the road.Ī lot of things from the Connery Bonds have not aged so well, including the rampant misogyny, but Bond disguising himself as a Japanese man in You Only Live Twice might have aged the worst. Connery’s Bond squares off against SPECTRE again, but this film is almost better known for being the focus of a messy legal dispute between Bond-film producer EON Productions, Fleming and a screenwriter Fleming had previously worked with named Kevin McClory.
