The Playboy and The James Bond

Introduction

Introduction

 

 

In honour of Playboy’s ongoing connection with James Bond, the cover of the June 2000 issue asked the playful question ‘Who Says Playboy Doesn’t Believe in Long-Term Relationships?’ This joking reference to one of the most infamous components of the playboy lifestyle was used to announce the issue’s celebration that, in various forms, the Playboy–Bond relationship had already lasted forty years. Surely, this is an impressive amount of time for any relationship, let alone between these particular icons of popular culture in view of an otherwise legendary reluctance to make any such long-term commitments – except of course to the fantasy ideal. It was certainly not the first time, nor is it the last time, that Playboy magazine reminded its readership of the Playboy–Bond connection by commenting on its longevity and significance, especially in relation to times past. Nowhere is this more obvious than in the repetition of a comment evidently made by Bond author Ian Fleming prior to his first publication in the magazine: ‘I’m sure James Bond, if he were an actual person, would be a registered reader of Playboy.’1 This is a remark that Playboy has revisited over the years to underline the strength of its association with the Bond character; it would also suggest that Fleming himself understood the potential of the bond between them early on.

Among other things that James Bond and Playboy have in common is the fact that they are both strongly associated with the sixties, having launched at about the same time in 1953, and remarkably they are still around over sixty years later. During the 1960s in particular, the print and screen versions of Bond made frequent appearances in the magazine, and the association was extended when Playboy later directly appeared in the Bond films, meaning that a reciprocal relationship developed

between them to include fiction, interviews, pictorials and other types of reference. More generally, Playboy and James Bond reinforced the same consumerist playboy lifestyle, rooted in an informed appreciation of the pleasures of a range of consumer goods and entertainments, especially women. On the fortieth anniversary of the Playboy–Bond connection, Playboy commemorated the relationship, making a characteristically forthright claim for impact on behalf of them both. According to the magazine, ‘Playboy and Bond defined the male mystique for the latter half of the 20th century … The clothes, the cars, the food, the gadgets, the girls, the wit, the sensual pleasure – these things matter. The enemy was not Spectre [sic] but ennui, conformity, the daily grind.’2 This ambitious claim to influence in some way motivates this research, which examines aspects of the playboy image and lifestyle in relation to James Bond and Playboy.

It is useful to add that although this book regards the Playboy–Bond relationship as uniquely complementary and observes that Sean Con- nery’s screen Bond in particular has been idolised by Playboy magazine, there have of course been other cultural figures that fostered the playboy ideal. Besides editor-publisher Hugh Hefner, actor Cary Grant, Rat Pack entertainer Frank Sinatra, and politician John F. Kennedy count among other long-standing Playboy favourites and quintessential playboy icons. Like James Bond, they epitomise mid-century playboy style. However, unlike such real-life figures, Bond remains more or less the same age, very much alive, and recognisably the same character no matter what incarnation he appears in, or the era. Moreover, Bond and Playboy each emerged to become a cultural phenomenon. Indeed, Bond and Playboy can also be considered as interrelated cultural phenomena; there is nothing quite like them.

A distinctive feature of this analysis is the way that it puts James Bond and Playboy together in order to reflect on a number of the relations between them, which it is argued seem more than coincidental, and connected from the outset. Even though there is a growing body of work on Playboy in popular culture, and recent years have seen a considerable amount of Bond scholarship, there has been relatively little in the way of scholarly analysis on the connections between James Bond and Playboy, and certainly no extended assessment of the relationship in context. Perhaps most notably, in 1987 Tony Bennett and Janet Woollacott’s pioneering cultural studies analysis of the Bond