Manitoba, eh?!
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Winnipeg: Birthplace of Bond?
Written by Lesley Hughes of the Winnipeg Free Press on July 19, 2008.
This city has a hot claim to fame. Winnipeg is the Home of Bond. James Bond. Yes, Agent 007 of her Majesty's Secret Service.James Bond has been the enduring symbol of glamour, espionage, sex and machismo since he made his fictional debut in 1953 in the Ian Fleming's novel Casino Royale. He's the second-biggest money-making brand in Hollywood history after Star Wars. And there are no signs the world is tired of him. The latest Bond movie, a remake of Casino Royale, was the highest grossing of all Bond films to date. The next, Quantum of Solace (the 22nd), opens in November.
The evidence has been gathering for years that writer Ian Fleming based his fictional hero on Sir William Stephenson, a real life spymaster who began his extraordinary life in 1897, an orphan in the city's Point Douglas area.
Ironically, Stephenson, a slight man who ultimately stood five-foot-two and boasted a 32-inch chest, is a much bigger hero than Bond. True, Bond can be relied on to save the day at the end of every movie, but historians believe Bill Stephenson was one of the men whose leadership, along with that of Churchill and Roosevelt, saved the western world from fascism in the Second World War.
His neighbours on Syndicate Street had no reason to believe the scrawny kid they called "Little Bill" would grow up to be a thorn in the side of a man like Adolf Hitler. He finished Grade 6 at Argyle School, got a job delivering telegrams on his bicycle, and at the first opportunity, signed up to fight in the First World War. A fighter pilot and a prisoner of war, he was publicly celebrated for his "conspicuous gallantry and devotion to duty" when he returned home.
Stephenson left Winnipeg at age of 25 when his fledgling hardware business failed. He emigrated to England, married an American tobacco heiress and parlayed her fortune into a much bigger one, gaining access to the upper echelons of British society along the way. He became a confidante of Winston Churchill, who dubbed Stephenson "The Man Called Intrepid."
It was during Stephenson's tenure in charge of the phony British Passport Office in New York City (actually a front for England's propaganda and counter-espionage headquarters) that Stephenson and writer Ian Fleming first met and became friends. Among many common interests, they both loved martinis, and Stevenson was famous for serving them to his guests in quart-sized glasses.
Winnipeg publisher Peter St. John, who lectures widely on the life of William Stephenson, says Fleming would have been bowled over by Stephenson's brilliance.
"There Stephenson was, in a Manhattan skyscraper surrounded by wild electronic surveillance gadgetry, secret files and scores of beautiful women agents, a man equally at home with heads of state and paid assassins. The more Fleming learned about him, the more impressed he became."
Fleming confided to friends that in some respects, he modelled the character of James Bond on himself.
Both the writer and his hero were aloof, upper class and patriotic Brits, with a weakness for gambling, serial love affairs and fast cars. Both were men of style and "savoir vivre," a fine sense of how to live.
But it's believed that much of Bond was borrowed from the exploits and adventures of William Stephenson.
"Stephenson," says his Winnipeg biographer, Bill McDonald, "had proven himself on the ground. He was an expert at small arms, an experienced commando, a marksman (he once volunteered to assassinate Hitler), and physically very brave. He was taciturn, unreadable and unflappable. He was also possessed of a photographic memory, and in spite of his bland appearance, was known to be personally magnetic.
"It was Bill Stephenson who founded Camp X , a training ground for killer commandos on the shores of Lake Ontario. He was also instrumental in establishing the CIA," McDonald adds.
This may explain why, when asked whether James Bond was a real spy, as he often was, Fleming would reply that "James Bond was a highly romanticized version of a spy... Bill Stephenson is the real thing."
After the Second World War, Fleming and Stephenson owned neighbouring properties in Jamaica, where Fleming did most of his work. By the time Fleming sat down to write the first Bond novel, he'd known and admired Stephenson for about 10 years.
"Bond is world-famous, but Bill Stephenson never really got his due," says McDonald.
"The British saw him as an interloper and resented him; the Russians diminished him because he helped to create the CIA, and the Americans have kept his contributions hush-hush, because most of what he did in the U.S.A. was highly illegal."
Brenda Austin Smith, who teaches film studies at the University of Manitoba, would like to see Winnipeg capitalize on the Bond connection.
"Why shouldn't Winnipeg be home to an annual James Bond Festival, a centre of excellence around espionage movies and literature? Why not develop a Bond Bar and throw some fabulous dress-up Bond parties? How about a "Bond Walk" like the famed Beatles Walk in London?"
St. John says Bond should be promoted to bring recognition to Stephenson, the man who inspired him.
To date, little has been done by the City of Winnipeg to acknowledge either Stephenson or his fictional persona. A small suburban library is named after him, and a statue of the man in his flying gear stands near the cenotaph, gazing in the direction of the legislative grounds. Cars and pedestrians pass by, largely unaware of who the statue represents or why it's there.
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