James Bond''s parents are Andrew Bond, a Scotsman, and Monique Delacroix, from Canton de Vaud, Switzerland. Their nationalities
were established in
On Her Majesty''s Secret Service. Fleming emphasized Bond''s Scottish heritage in admiration of Sean Connery''s cinematic portrayal, whereas Bond''s mother is named after a Swiss fiancée of Fleming''s. A planned, but unwritten, novel would have portrayed Bond''s mother as a Scot. Ian Fleming was a member of a prominent Scottish banking family.<5> In his fictional biography of secret agent 007, John Pearson gave Bond''s birth date as 11 November (Armistice Day) 1920 (The beginning of the film "For Your Eyes Only" gives his wife''s birthdate as 1943. This seemingly assumes Bond to be younger than Pearson claimed); however, there is no evidence of it in Fleming''s novels. In the novel
On Her Majesty''s Secret Service, Bond''s family motto is found to be "Orbis non sufficit" ("The world is not enough"). The novel also states that the family that used this motto may not necessarily be the same Bond family James Bond came from.<6>
Hoagy Carmichael—another James Bond role model.
After completing the manuscript for
Casino Royale, Fleming allowed his friend, later his editor, poet William Plomer to read it. Plomer liked it and submitted it to Jonathan Cape, who did not like it as much. Cape finally published it in 1953 on the recommendation of Fleming''s older brother Peter, an established travel writer.<7>
Most researchers agree that James Bond is a romanticized version of Ian Fleming, himself a jet-setting womanizer. Both Fleming and Bond attended the same schools, preferred the same foods (scrambled eggs, coffee), maintained the same habits (drinking, smoking, wearing short-sleeve shirts), shared the same notions of the perfect woman in looks and style, and had similar
naval career paths (both rising to the rank of naval Commander). They also shared similar height, hairstyle, and eye colour. Some suggest that Bond''s suave and sophisticated persona is based on that of a young Hoagy Carmichael. In
Casino Royale, the anti-heroine Vesper Lynd remarks, "
reminds me rather of Hoagy Carmichael, but there is something cold and ruthless." Likewise, in Moonraker, Special Branch Officer Gala Brand thinks that Bond is "certainly good-looking . . . Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold."<8>
Fleming did admit to being partly inspired by his service in the Naval Intelligence Division of the Admiralty, most notably an incident depicted in Casino Royale, when Fleming and Naval Intelligence Director Admiral Godfrey went on a mission to Lisbon en route to the United States during World War II. At the Estoril Casino, which harboured spies of warring regimes due to Portugal''s neutrality, Fleming was ''cleaned out'' by a "chief German agent" in a game of Chemin de Fer. Admiral Godfrey''s account differs in that Fleming played Portuguese businessmen, whom Fleming fantasized as German agents he defeated at cards. Moreover, references to "Red Indians" in Casino Royale (four times; twice in the final page) are to his own 30 Assault Unit.