He was also a notorious wheeler-dealer. Ratoff didn’t just make movies; he hunted for properties. And in 1954, he went hunting for the most dangerous game of all: Ian Fleming’s nascent spy novels.
Enter Gregory Ratoff. He saw something others missed: the cinematic potential of a cold, ruthless hero in a Savile Row suit.
“A spy who orders his eggs soft-boiled?” they scoffed. “A villain named Le Chiffre who cries blood?” Too weird. “The hero actually falls in love and loses?” Too downbeat. gregory ratoff james bond film rights
But the true origin story of Bond in cinema begins a decade earlier, with a flamboyant, Russian-born Hollywood director named Gregory Ratoff.
In the mid-1950s, Ian Fleming was not a brand. He was a former naval intelligence officer and a Sunday Times columnist writing thrillers for a niche audience. His first Bond novel, Casino Royale (1953), sold respectably, not spectacularly. He was also a notorious wheeler-dealer
If you’ve never heard the name, imagine a heavier-set, chain-smoking version of Peter Sellers. Ratoff was a character. A former actor and theatrical producer from St. Petersburg, he fled the Russian Revolution, landed in New York, and eventually became a reliable director in 1930s and 40s Hollywood. His credits include The Sound of Fury and the original The Man Who Understood Women .
Gregory Ratoff never saw the Bond franchise explode. He died of leukemia in 1960, just two years before Dr. No premiered. He was 63. Enter Gregory Ratoff
In 1955, Ratoff sold the Casino Royale rights to CBS producer Michael Garrison for a reported $10,000. Garrison planned a live TV adaptation. That fell apart.