NAME: Roger George Moore

AGE: 75

NATIONALITY: British

CLAIM TO FAME: Knighthood for the James Bond actor

THE name’s Moore. ‘Sir’ Roger Moore.

The debonair British actor, famous for his on-screen exploits as James Bond, was recently given the title of Sir following his knighthood by Queen Elizabeth.

However, the actor who starred in seven Bond flicks, from 1973 to 1985, was not awarded this honour for his acting skills. rather it was his tireless charity work that got him the award. In 1991, he was made a special representative of Unicef, an organization with which he’d been active since the 1960s.

As Moore knelt before the queen in a special ceremony where she placed a sword on his shoulders confirming his knighthood, he become the second James Bond actor to be knighted. Sir Sean Connery was honoured three years ago and the current Bond, Pierce Brosnan, because he is Irish, collected an honorary Order of the British Empire this year too.

“I had the worst attack of stage fright in my life,” said Moore after the ceremony and added that he doesn’t mind if fans still refer to him as 007.

The movie experience of this London-born actor started as a film extra to support his first love, painting. But soon he grew fond of acting and enrolled in the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. He began his film, radio and stage career just after World War II. Signed on the basis of his good looks to an MGM contract in 1954, Moore began making appearances in American films, none of which amounted to much dramatically. His biggest success of the 1950s was as star of the British-filmed TV series Ivanhoe. Moore hit the big time for his portrayal of Simon Templar in the 1960s television series The Saint.

After another British TV serial, 1971’s The Persuaders, Moore was selected to replace Sean Connery in the James Bond films, his first one being Live and Let Die. His last Bond appearance was 1985’s A View to a Kill.

Few of Moore’s non-Bond movie appearances of the 1970s and 1980s were notably successful, save for an amusing part as a mama’s boy who thinks he’s Bond in Burt Reynold’s Cannonball Run (1981). Relegated mainly to a series of flops through the 1990s, Moore appeared in such efforts as The Quest (1996) and Spice World (1997) and gained most of his exposure that decade as a television talk show and documentary host.

The actor, who still has strikingly good looks and is in the twilight of his age, collapsed onstage during a Broadway performance of The Play That I Wrote, in May this year. Rushed to a nearby hospital after insisting on finishing his performance in the small role, Moore was subsequently fitted with a pacemaker. But when he appeared at the special ceremony — along with rock star Sting who was awarded the CBE (Commander of the British Empire) — the former Bond star was as fit as ever.