On May 8, 1963, with the American release of Dr. No, North American moviegoers get their first look down the barrel of a gun—at the super-spy James Bond (codename: 007), the immortal character created by Ian Fleming in his now-famous series of novels and portrayed onscreen by the relatively unknown Scottish actor Sean Connery.
Connery had acted in repertory theater and television and scored some bit parts in films before landing his first significant role, opposite Lana Turner in Another Time, Another Place (1958). Bigger roles followed, notably in Tarzan’s Greatest Adventure (1959). Harold Saltzman and Albert “Cubby” Broccoli, the producers of Dr. No, had other actors in mind to play Bond, including Cary Grant and James Mason; Fleming himself preferred another leading candidate, David Niven. After winning the role, however, Connery swiftly made it his own.
Costarring Ursula Andress, Joseph Wiseman and Jack Lord, Dr. No sends Bond, a British Secret Service agent, to Jamaica to investigate the murders of a fellow agent and his secretary. There, he is forced to confront the villainous Chinese scientist Dr. No (Wiseman) with the help of a bikini-clad seashell collector, Honey Ryder (Andress) and a CIA agent (Lord). Dr. No established many signature elements of the Bond film series, including its distinctive theme song, fast-paced action sequences, sexy “Bond girls”–both good and bad, Bond’s fondness for vodka martinis “shaken, not stirred” and his introduction of himself as “Bond. James Bond.”
