10 facts about James Bond author Ian Fleming

The son of a Conservative MP for Henley, he was educated at Eton and Sandhurst before pursuing careers as as a journalist and naval intelligence officer.

He wrote his first James Bond novel, Casino Royale, at the age of 44 and went on to sell over 100 million books worldwide. 

Eleven more Bond novels and a very famous children’s book cemented his position as one of the best-selling and best-loved authors of the 20th century.

The first Bond film, Dr No was released in 1962 and began one of the greatest franchises in film history - a franchise that would bring us the likes of Sean Connery, Roger Moore and Daniel Craig as the leading man, surrounded by a host of famous beauties such as Ursula Andress, Jane Seymour, Honor Blackman, Halle Berry and Eva Green.

Yet he only enjoyed a few years of international success before he died suddenly of a heart attack in the early hours of August 12, 1964. It was his son Caspar’s 12th birthday.

Matthew Parker’s new book Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming's Jamaica takes a look at Fleming’s extraordinary life and the creation of his most famous fictional character.

To mark the 50th anniversary of his death, Parker has shared his favourite facts about the man behind the iconic spy.

1. GOLDENEYE IS A HOUSE

All the James Bond novels and stories were written at Goldeneye, the house he built on Jamaica’s north coast where he spent two months of every year from the end of the war until his death 50 years ago.

In 1976 the estate was purchased by Bob Marley who sold it on to Island Records founder Chris Blackwell the following year. Blackwell has developed the estate and surrounding lands into a luxury resort.

Fleming's gardener, Ramsey, although retired, still lives on the property.

2. HE HAD ECLECTIC MUSIC TASTES

The Bond books are filled with virile, overtly macho fights, both with fists and guns but, as a child, Fleming wanted no part in his upper class family’s hunting, shooting and fishing exploits.

Instead, he preferred to stay in and listen to Hawaiian guitar music.

3. WOMEN WERE NOT ALWAYS ON HIS MIND

Despite his reputation for being obsessed with beautiful women in his books and his own life, his first brush with expulsion from Eton was not because of womanising, but because he bunked off to visit the Empire Exhibition at Wembley in 1925 aged 17.

4. VESPER WAS NOT NAMED AFTER A MOTORBIKE

The first ever Bond girl, Vesper Lynd of Casino Royale, was actually named after a cocktail - a mix of frozen rum, fruit and herbs - Ian had been given in Jamaica.

Two of his other famous heroines, Solitaire from Live and Let Die, and Domino from Thunderball, are named after rare Jamaican birds.

5. HE WASN'T KEEN ON AMERICA

The very British agent OO7 seemed to constantly and single-handedly save the world. So it’s not a great surprise to discover that Fleming had little regard for the United States, calling it: “A society that fails to establish a clear moral definition of right and wrong."

In case that wasn't clear enough, he also believed that Americans were, “Totally unprepared to rule the world that is now theirs.”

6. HE BECAME AN UNWITTING PLAYER IN THE SUEZ CRISIS

He first became front-page news not because of his books but because the Prime Minister Antony Eden stayed at his house in Jamaica when his health failed during the Suez Crisis of 1956.

7. HIS SHARED HIS WIFE WITH A POLITICIAN

Ian Fleming fell in love with his wife Ann Charteris while she was still married to the second Viscount Rothermere.

But she didn't remain faithful to her new husband and had a life-long affair with Hugh Gaitskell, the leader of the Labour Party. 

The Flemings had one son, Caspar, who lived a short and rather tragic life. After losing his father at the age of 12, Caspar took his life when he was 23. 

8. HIS SON INSPIRED CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG

Not many people realise that Fleming also wrote the books that inspired the 1968 Dick Van Dyke film. 

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Car about an eccentric inventor's adventures with his thinking, flying Paragon Panther was written for Fleming’s son Caspar and published in three volumes, the first in 1964.

It was serialised in the Daily Express every day for a week when it was published.

9. JAMES BOND WAS NAMED AFTER A BIRD-WATCHER

Fleming was a keen bird-watcher and appropriated the name for his most famous creation from a leading American ornithologist.

He wrote to the real Bond's wife, explaining his choice, "It struck me that this brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name was just what I needed and so a second James Bond was born."

The real James Bond turned up with his wife at Goldeneye in 1964. Fleming said he was "terribly amused by the whole thing".

10. HE ADVISED JFK ON THE CUBAN CRISIS

At a dinner in Washington, Fleming told JFK that the best way to deal with Castro was to suggest that American nuclear tests had made men with beards sexually impotent.

It's unclear whether Kennedy took his advice.

Goldeneye: Where Bond Was Born: Ian Fleming’s Jamaica by Matthew Parker (Hutchinson, £20) is out now