Roger Moore: All Roads Lead to Yours Sincerely

Paris Première is dedicating its Sunday evening to the series in which the British actor shares the bill with Tony Curtis.

If he will remain in history as the third actor to have played 007 in the cinema, after Sean Conneryit is on the small screen that Roger Moore forged most of his career. The English actor, who died at the age of 89, was one of the first television superstars, both in the UK and across the Atlantic. On the occasion of the rebroadcast, on Paris Première this Sunday at 9 p.m., of the first episode ofYours sincerelya cult series from the 1970s, a look back at the television career of the actor who plays Brett Sinclair.

1958. While Roger Moore just turned 30, he landed the role ofIvanohea vigilante knight under the reign of the infamous Prince John, in a major medieval series, broadcast at the time in black and white, on the British channel ITV.

A role he would occupy for 39 episodes and which would make him known to the general public. So much so that the following year, the actor crossed the Atlantic to star in the western series The Alaskansa sort of gold rush, which will lead him to play Beau Maverick, cousin of Bret Maverick (James Garner), Bart Maverick (Jack Kelly) and Brent Maverick (Robert Colbert), in the hit ABC drama of the same name.

It's 1962 and Roger Moore became a television star in the US and the UK. He then returned to England to take on the role of Simon Templar, better known as The Saintthis famous detective created by Leslie Charteris in the 1920s. While Patrick McGoohan is courted for the place, the actor of Bowler Hat and Leather Boots passes his turn and Moore thus inherits his first cult role, the one which, it is said, will allow him to be in the front line to reprise the role of James Bonda decade later.

It was also during the filming of the Holy that is born Yours sincerely. In 1969, in an episode of season 6, Simon Templar competes with a rich and idle Texan. This gives the producer an idea, Robert S. BakerThe concept is there and will be refined little by little, to become The Persuaders! Roger Moore will play, from 1971, the famous Brett Sinclair, lord dandy and billionaire, saddled with an American businessman from New York, Danny Wilde.

At the beginning, it is Rock Hudson who must embody the comrade of Roger Moore on screen. But the two look too much alike physically and the casting then falls on the movie star, Tony Curtis (died in 2010), whose career was running out of steam. The chemistry between the two men was obvious on screen, and the series quickly became a huge success in France… but not in the United States. On the American channel ABC, which broadcasts and produces, the ratings were struggling. So much so that the Network took a radical decision: cancel the show after a year. Only 20 of the 24 episodes produced were broadcast.

Beyond the series' sluggish scores in the American market, Yours sincerely suffers from regular quarrels between Roger Moore And Tony Curtison set. The first, very invested in the project (Moore for example designed his character's outfits himself), is very often irritated by the casual nature of Tony CurtisMany years later, several producers would confirm these clashes that punctuated the filming…

Yours sincerely will therefore not be the success expected by Roger Moore. But the actor did not lose everything. Far from it. He did indeed pocket a nice fee of one million dollars for the whole show, becoming, that year, the highest paid television actor in the world.

But his role as Brett Sinclair above all allowed him to reveal himself, at the right time, in the eyes of the producers of James Bondwho were then looking for a replacement for Sean ConneryAfter Diamonds are forever (1971) and the departure of the Scottish actor. His performances as a gentleman investigator in The Saint And Yours sincerely have, without a doubt, allowed Roger Moore to subsequently become part of the 007 legend.