The actor Sir Roger Moore has died at 89 after “a short but brave battle with cancer,” according to his family and his agent.
Moore played the role of James Bond from 1973 to 1985 and was knighted in his home country of England in 2003.
He was the third of six actors who have played James Bond in the official silver screen franchise, beginning with 1973’s Live and Let Die. He starred in a total of seven Bond films over 12 years, ending with A View to a Kill in 1985.
Moore embraced the Bond legend for decades afterward; none of the other Bonds burnished the legend as lovingly as he did. He published four books about his time as Agent 007, all of them with a sense of humor — especially about stepping into the shoes that Sean Connery made famous.
Some Bond fans thought early on that Moore was far too pretty for the role. In his 2008 memoir, My Word is My Bond, he calls the character “a lover and a giggler,” and he told NPR’s Scott Simon in 2014 that his Bond looked “as though I’d squeeze them to death with love and lust.”