80 Facts About Ian Fleming

Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British writer, best known for his postwar James Bond series of spy novels.

Ian Fleming drew from his wartime service and his career as a journalist for much of the background, detail, and depth of his James Bond novels.

Ian Fleming wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1952.

Ian Fleming wrote the children's story Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang and two works of non-fiction.

Ian Fleming had divorced her husband, the 2nd Viscount Rothermere, because of her affair with the author.

Ian Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker for most of his life and succumbed to heart disease in 1964 at the age of 56.

Ian Fleming's creation has appeared in film twenty-seven times, portrayed by seven actors.

Ian Fleming's mother was Evelyn "Eve" Fleming, Rose, and his father was Valentine Fleming, the Member of Parliament for Henley from 1910 to 1917.

In 1914, with the start of the First World War, Valentine Ian Fleming joined "C" Squadron of Queen's Own Oxfordshire Hussars, and rose to the rank of Major.

Ian Fleming had two younger brothers, Michael and Richard.

In 1914 Ian Fleming attended Durnford School, a preparatory school on the Isle of Purbeck in Dorset.

Ian Fleming did not enjoy his time at Durnford; he suffered unpalatable food, physical hardship and bullying.

Ian Fleming spent less than a year there, leaving in 1927 without gaining a commission, after contracting gonorrhea.

Ian Fleming scored an adequate pass standard, but failed to get a job offer.

Early in 1939 Ian Fleming began an affair with Ann O'Neill, Charteris, who was married to the 3rd Baron O'Neill; she was having an affair with Esmond Harmsworth, the heir to Lord Rothermere, owner of the Daily Mail.

In May 1939 Ian Fleming was recruited by Rear Admiral John Godfrey, Director of Naval Intelligence of the Royal Navy, to become his personal assistant.

Ian Fleming joined the organisation full-time in August 1939, with the codename "17F", and worked out of Room 39 at the Admiralty, now known as the Ripley Building.

Ian Fleming proved invaluable as Godfrey's personal assistant and excelled in administration.

Ian Fleming frequently used Fleming as a liaison with other sections of the government's wartime administration, such as the Secret Intelligence Service, the Political Warfare Executive, the Special Operations Executive, the Joint Intelligence Committee and the Prime Minister's staff.

In May 1941 Ian Fleming accompanied Godfrey to the United States, where he assisted in writing a blueprint for the Office of the Coordinator of Information, the department that turned into the Office of Strategic Services and eventually became the CIA.

Admiral Godfrey put Ian Fleming in charge of Operation Goldeneye between 1941 and 1942; Goldeneye was a plan to maintain an intelligence framework in Spain in the event of a German takeover of the territory.

Ian Fleming's plan involved maintaining communication with Gibraltar and launching sabotage operations against the Nazis.

In 1942 Ian Fleming formed a unit of commandos, known as No 30 Commando or 30 Assault Unit, composed of specialist intelligence troops.

The German unit was thought by Ian Fleming to be "one of the most outstanding innovations in German intelligence".

Ian Fleming did not fight in the field with the unit, but selected targets and directed operations from the rear.

Ian Fleming observed the raid from HMS Fernie, 700 yards offshore.

In March 1944 Ian Fleming oversaw the distribution of intelligence to Royal Navy units in preparation for Operation Overlord.

Ian Fleming was replaced as head of 30AU on 6 June 1944, but maintained some involvement.

Ian Fleming visited 30AU in the field during and after Overlord, especially following an attack on Cherbourg for which he was concerned that the unit had been incorrectly used as a regular commando force rather than an intelligence-gathering unit.

Ian Fleming followed the unit into Germany after it located, in Tambach Castle, the German naval archives from 1870.

In December 1944 Ian Fleming was posted on an intelligence fact-finding trip to the Far East on behalf of the Director of Naval Intelligence.

Ian Fleming sat on the committee that selected the targets for the T-Force unit, and listed them in the "Black Books" that were issued to the unit's officers.

In 1942 Ian Fleming attended an Anglo-American intelligence summit in Jamaica and, despite the constant heavy rain during his visit, he decided to live on the island once the war was over.

Ian Fleming himself mentioned both his wartime Operation Goldeneye and Carson McCullers' 1941 novel Reflections in a Golden Eye, which described the use of British naval bases in the Caribbean by the American navy.

Ian Fleming was demobilised in May 1945, but remained in the RNVR for several years, receiving a promotion to substantive lieutenant-commander on 26 July 1947.

Ian Fleming ended his service on 16 August 1952, when he was removed from the active list of the RNVR with the rank of lieutenant-commander.

Ian Fleming's contract allowed him to take three months' holiday every winter, which he took in Jamaica.

Ian Fleming worked full-time for the paper until December 1959, but continued to write articles and attend the Tuesday weekly meetings until at least 1961.

Nevertheless, Charteris continued her affair with Ian Fleming, travelling to Jamaica to see him under the pretext of visiting his friend and neighbour Noel Coward.

Rothermere divorced Charteris in 1951 because of her relationship with Ian Fleming, and the couple married on 24 March 1952 in Jamaica, a few months before their son Caspar was born in August.

Ian Fleming had a long-term affair in Jamaica with one of his neighbours, Blanche Blackwell, the mother of Chris Blackwell of Island Records.

Ian Fleming was friends with British Prime Minister Anthony Eden whom he allowed to stay at Goldeneye in late November 1953 due to Eden's deteriorating health.

Ian Fleming had first mentioned to friends during the war that he wanted to write a spy novel, an ambition he achieved within two months with Casino Royale.

Ian Fleming started writing the book at Goldeneye on 17 February 1952, gaining inspiration from his own experiences and imagination.

Ian Fleming claimed afterwards that he wrote the novel to distract himself from his forthcoming wedding to the pregnant Charteris, and called the work his "dreadful oafish opus".

Ian Fleming's manuscript was typed in London by Joan Howe, and Fleming's red-haired secretary at The Times on whom the character Miss Moneypenny was partially based.

Ian Fleming took the name for his character from that of the American ornithologist James Bond, an expert on Caribbean birds and author of the definitive field guide Birds of the West Indies.

Ian Fleming based his creation on individuals he met during his time in the Naval Intelligence Division, and admitted that Bond "was a compound of all the secret agents and commando types I met during the war".

Ian Fleming modelled aspects of Bond on Conrad O'Brien-ffrench, a spy whom Ian Fleming had met while skiing in Kitzbuhel in the 1930s, Patrick Dalzel-Job, who served with distinction in 30AU during the war, and Bill "Biffy" Dunderdale, station head of MI6 in Paris, who wore cufflinks and handmade suits and was chauffeured around Paris in a Rolls-Royce.

Ian Fleming endowed Bond with many of his own traits, including the same golf handicap, his taste for scrambled eggs, his love of gambling, and use of the same brand of toiletries.

Lycett notes that Ian Fleming "went into a personal and creative decline" after marital problems and the attacks on his work.

Goldfinger had been written before the publication of Dr No; the next book Ian Fleming produced after the criticism was For Your Eyes Only, a collection of short stories derived from outlines written for a television series that did not come to fruition.

Lycett noted that, as Fleming was writing the television scripts and the short stories, "Ian's mood of weariness and self-doubt was beginning to affect his writing", which can be seen in Bond's thoughts.

In 1960 Ian Fleming was commissioned by the Kuwait Oil Company to write a book on the country and its oil industry.

Ian Fleming followed the disappointment of For Your Eyes Only with Thunderball, the novelisation of a film script on which he had worked with others.

Ian Fleming had been having second thoughts on McClory's involvement and, in January 1960, explained his intention of delivering the screenplay to MCA, with a recommendation from him and Bryce that McClory act as producer.

Ian Fleming additionally told McClory that if MCA rejected the film because of McClory's involvement, then McClory should either sell himself to MCA, back out of the deal, or file a suit in court.

McClory gained the literary and film rights for the screenplay, while Ian Fleming was given the rights to the novel, provided it was acknowledged as "based on a screen treatment by Kevin McClory, Jack Whittingham and the Author".

Ian Fleming's books had always sold well, but in 1961 sales increased dramatically.

Ian Fleming attacked the project with gusto and wrote to his publisher, Michael Howard of Jonathan Cape, joking that "There is not a moment, even on the edge of the tomb, when I am not slaving for you"; the result was Ian Fleming's only children's novel, Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang, which was published in October 1964, two months after his death.

In June 1961 Ian Fleming sold a six-month option on the film rights to his published and future James Bond novels and short stories to Harry Saltzman.

Connery's depiction of Bond affected the literary character; in You Only Live Twice, the first book written after Dr No was released, Ian Fleming gave Bond a sense of humour that was not present in the previous stories.

However, Ian Fleming withdrew from the project following a request from Eon Productions, who were keen to avoid any legal problems that might occur if the project overlapped with the Bond films.

In January 1964 Ian Fleming went to Goldeneye for what proved to be his last holiday and wrote the first draft of The Man with the Golden Gun.

Ian Fleming was dissatisfied with it and wrote to William Plomer, the copy editor of his novels, asking for it to be rewritten.

Ian Fleming became increasingly unhappy with the book and considered rewriting it, but was dissuaded by Plomer, who considered it viable for publication.

Ian Fleming was a heavy smoker and drinker throughout his adult life, and suffered from heart disease.

On 11 August 1964, while staying at a hotel in Canterbury, Ian Fleming went to the Royal St George's Golf Club for lunch and later dined at his hotel with friends.

The author Raymond Benson, who later wrote a series of Bond novels, noted that Ian Fleming's books fall into two stylistic periods.

Benson argues that Ian Fleming had become "a master storyteller" by the time he wrote Thunderball in 1961.

Jeremy Black divides the series based on the villains Ian Fleming created, a division supported by fellow academic Christoph Lindner.

Ian Fleming named Raymond Chandler, Dashiell Hammett, Eric Ambler and Graham Greene as influences.

Ian Fleming used well-known brand names and everyday details to support a sense of realism.

The last of the defections was that of Kim Philby in January 1963, while Ian Fleming was still writing the first draft of You Only Live Twice.

The briefing between Bond and M is the first time in the twelve books that Ian Fleming acknowledges the defections.

Black contends that the conversation between M and Bond allows Ian Fleming to discuss the decline of Britain, with the defections and the Profumo affair of 1963 as a backdrop.

Two of the defections had taken place shortly before Ian Fleming wrote Casino Royale, and the book can be seen as the writer's "attempt to reflect the disturbing moral ambiguity of a post-war world that could produce traitors like Burgess and Maclean", according to Lycett.

Uncertain and shifting geopolitics led Fleming to replace the Russian organisation SMERSH with the international terrorist group SPECTRE in Thunderball, permitting "evil unconstrained by ideology".

Ian Fleming was aware of this tension between the two countries, but did not focus on it strongly.

In 2002 Ian Fleming Publications announced the launch of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger award, presented by the Crime Writers' Association to the best thriller, adventure or spy novel originally published in the UK.