It has become something of an institution and while some critics have felt that the character should have been retired years ago he continues to endure and with Craig as Bond seems to be as popular as ever.

Rather than focussing on the series as a whole I want to look at one particular moment in time and one actor in particular. Landing the part of 007 is the acting equivalent of winning the lottery, your name is suddenly thrust under the world’s spotlight, your earning potential increases significantly and it is no exaggeration to say that you could be set for life.

Yet there is one example where it did not quite go to plan for the producers, the production team and its star. In 1968 with the departure of the hugely popular Sean Connery (the first actor to play the part the) producers Harry Saltzman and Cubby Broccoli were on the hunt for a new James Bond.

Australian born George Lazenby was a twenty nine year old who had served in the Australian army, was a former car salesman and was then working as the highest paid male model in the UK. At six feet two with dark hair and an athletic build as well as a martial arts background and experience of skiing he certainly seemed a good fit for the part. The story goes that he spent the last of his money purchasing a suit from Sean Connery’s tailor and a Rolex watch. He had his long hair cut short and rolled into the auditions brimming with confidence and bravado.

It is important to note that Lazenby had no acting experience apart from appearing in television commercials and a bit part in an Italian spy spoof. Yet he impressed the Bond producers with his physicality. Legend has it that during a screen test he accidently broke another actor’s nose in a mock fight!

What I love about this story is Lazenby’s sheer chutzpah. Here was someone who managed to bluff their way into perhaps the most sought after acting gig in the late 1960s. However over the next nine months of filming the initial thrill of getting the coveted role would turn sour.

Starring alongside Bond regulars Bernard Lee, Lois Maxwell and Desmond Llewellyn as well as Hollywood stars Telly Savalas and Diana Rigg, the new Bond impressed the stuntmen and the second unit team yet there was friction with co-star Rigg and director Peter Hunt.

Unsurprisingly the inexperienced and headstrong Lazenby was unprepared and unused to the world of big film productions and how to behave. There were reports that the role had gone to his head and he had misbehaved on one occasion accidently injuring Bernard Lee whilst larking around on horseback.

Had the press not blown these stories out of proportion they could have been dismissed as an impetuous young man making a few mistakes and nothing more. Filming wrapped in the summer of 1969 and it looked like despite the daunting task of stepping in to Connery’s shoes Lazenby had made a brave stab at the part.

Behind the scenes negotiations were being made to sign him up for seven Bond films and five non-Bond films which would have earned him a fortune and made a star of him. The only snag was that this seemingly lucrative contract was fourteen pages long and it is alleged, was full of restrictive clauses. Unsurprisingly the actor felt that the terms were too demanding and controlling and despite the potential financial rewards on offer he was unhappy and wanted to renegotiate.

It was a big shock however when Lazenby’s publicist Ronan O’Rahilly announced before the premiere of ‘On Her Majesty’s Secret Service’ that it would be his first and only Bond film (it was probably an even bigger shock to Lazenby who found out at the same time as everyone else!)

Apparently O’Rahilly advised Lazenby that Bond was a ‘Sixties’ icon and past his sell by date. The seventies would see the demise of the series and counterculture films like ‘Easy Rider’ were going to be the future.

Now, it is easy with hindsight to criticize this line of thinking but I can see where O’Rahilly was coming from. Up until then the cinematic Bond was very much a product of the times and fit the philosophy of the fun loving early to mid sixties with the world identifying the character strongly with Sean Connery.

All the rival spy films and spoofs at that time were not too far off Bond itself which was already developing into self-parody. By 1967 Connery seemed thoroughly exhausted by the whole circus and quit after his fifth film as Bond, the hugely over the top ‘You Only Live Twice.’

At the time of OHMSS the world was changing with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the Manson murders, Woodstock and the unpopular Vietnam War raging. In 1969 it was the height of the hippie anti-war, anti-establishment era and a character like Bond probably belonged to another age and was already appearing corny and out of touch.

So Lazenby followed up Bond with the self-financed ‘Universal Soldier’ a film very much of its time with open drug use (like ‘Easy Rider’) and an anti-hero its main character, the mercenary for hire struggling with his conscience, Ryker (played by Lazenby).

Jimmi Hendrix was due to record the soundtrack for the film and some say he may have even appeared in it as well; sadly his tragic death at only twenty seven years old prevented this. With its bleak subject matter, incoherent script and message the film bombed. Lazenby promptly fired O’Rahilly.

Down but not out, he starred in an Italian horror movie ‘Who Saw Her Die’ which coincidently co-starred former Bond actor Adolfo Celi (Largo in ‘Thunderball.’) When this also failed to hit the heights at the box office a depressed Lazenby must have wondered where it had all gone wrong.

However another huge opportunity arose when producer Raymond Chow offered Lazenby the chance to star alongside hugely popular martial arts star Bruce Lee in a series of films in Hong Kong for studio Golden Harvest.

It must have seemed like a wonderful reprieve and an opportunity to set the record straight but again fate or just plain bad luck was to scupper these plans. Bruce Lee died in suspicious circumstances aged just thirty two. The huge deal seemed to be up in smoke. Lazenby who was contractually obligated to Chow went on to make the three films (including cult favourite ‘The Man From Hong Kong’) and was handsomely rewarded financially but without Lee’s involvement the films were nowhere near as big as they could have been internationally.

Lazenby’s last chance of big screen stardom had eluded him by yet another cruel unexpected twist of fate. It looked like he was a man who had bet everything he had on black and red had come up instead.

The rest of his career saw him appearing in a string of ‘B’ movies and television shows such as ‘The Return of the Man From Uncle’, ‘Bring ‘Em Back Alive’, ‘General Hospital’, ‘Gettysburg’, ‘Superboy’, ‘Baywatch’, ‘The Pretender’ and even a few Emmanuelle films. Hardly the big time but it was work.

He has remained philosophical about his brief stint as Bond and his subsequent career: ‘I don't know where my life would have gone if I hadn't have done it. Had I been so-called 'successful' and continued on I would probably have had three or four Hollywood wives and a drug addiction. That was me at the time. I just went where the flavour was at the time. I didn't have a mind of my own, which was sad. I would like to have had the mind I have now at twenty nine.’

Bond producer Broccoli even went on to say that he believed that Lazenby had the potential to be the best Bond ever. It was mainly because of the negative publicity and fallout from OHMSS that really hurt Lazenby’s subsequent career.

As a big fan of the books and the film series I have always been particularly interested with Lazenby’s brief tenure as Bond and wondered what might have been had he stayed on even if just for one more outing as Bond. I feel (as do many others out there) that he had a particularly hard time and a lot of undeserved criticism.

As Bond, Lazenby managed to convey charm, ruthlessness and vulnerability. Director Peter Hunt wanted to make a Bond that was as close to the source novel by Ian Fleming as possible so we ended up with a much darker entry in the series. The scenes where Tracy dies and Bond breaks down would have tested the best of actors, and first timer Lazenby was brilliant in them.

Like Connery, he managed to give Bond a cat-like grace but also made the character have a harder edge. You believed that here was an uncompromising tough guy who enjoyed the finer things in life and treated women as disposable pleasures until his whole ethos was challenged by the vulnerable and alluring Tracy. It was a totally new side to the secret agent adding much needed depth to the series.

If he had not misread the situation listening to what later transpired to be poor advice, I am convinced that Lazenby would have made ‘Diamonds Are Forever’ a much more enjoyable Bond movie. Frankly Sean Connery looked flabby and disinterested as Bond in that one and I would have much preferred to see Lazenby’s Bond furious and hell-bent on avenging his wife’s death instead.

Making a second Bond film could have set the record straight and redeemed him in the eyes of the producers thus easing relations as well as providing the media with a much more favourable perception of him.

Roger Moore who became Bond in 1973 and who went on to become one of the most popular in the franchise showed how tough it was to succeed Connery. It wasn’t until his third outing that he finally looked and felt comfortable with the part and this was an established actor of over twenty years when he got the part!

I am looking forward very much to the latest Bond movie and know that the production team will pull out all the stops to entertain us once again. But for me the most interesting episode particularly of ‘what might have been’ remains to be Lazenby’s tenure as Bond. He nailed Fleming’s character and for a first time effort he did surprisingly well (go on and read the books, the Bond of the books is exactly what Lazenby and director Hunt gave us in 1969).

2012 will be a big year for Bond fans and I will be looking out for Lazenby’s autobiography aptly named ‘The Other Fella’ which should see him telling his side of the story.

‘The Other Fella’ will be released later in 2012 and is published by Century.