Our story of the month: April 2005

He must be doing something right, because in many European countries he's the greatest thing to hit the Continent since U.S. foreign aid. In Germany, for instance, hordes of "hausfraus" would probably dump both "haus" and husband for a crack at his Lochinvar good looks and Mayfair charm. In Madrid, he had to be hustled out of the Prado art gallery to prevent busloads of adoring "senoritas" from tramping all over the art treasures. In Bucharest, his picture, on post cards, sells for 3 lei in the open shops and six times that on the black market.

He's Roger Moore, and this summer on NBC he has shown up as that dapper do-gooder Simon Templar, otherwise known as The Saint. And although there doesn't seem to be a rush on Moore picture post cards in the American market as yet, his show, seen Sundays at 10, has pulled in a respectable Nielsen.

Putting all the fuss aside, Roger Moore isn't exactly what you'd call a new face. Now 40, he was in a rash of MGM and Warner Brothers pictures in the Fifties ("The Last Time I Saw Paris", "Interrupted Melody"), but it was TV that gave him his biggest exposure. He starred in two series ("Ivanhoe" and "The Alaskans") but is probably best remembered as Beau Maverick in "Maverick". All told, it's a career Moore sums ip as "significant", adding a puncturing "if there is any significance to mediocrity".

That's the kind of statement you have to regard as naked candor or a surprising put-down.Hearing Moore talk about himself, however, is both candor and a put-down - with the emphasis very much on the latter. "I'm probably not a very good actor", he says matter-of-factly. "I play the same character over and over... In 'Ivanhoe' I was a bou scout in armour. In 'The Alaskans' I was a boy scout in parka. In 'Maverick' I was sort of a Rover Boy. In 'The Saint', I'm still playing the same part; only, heaven knows, it's a little older now".

The knocks continue: "I made some good pictures when I was featured. It was only when I started starring in them that they went downhill... Ninety percent of my career has been sheer luck. My luck held out, too, until the studios found out I couldn't act very well... MGM signed me in New York. The same office that sent ou people like Joan Crawford and Spencer Tracy. But anyone is entitled to 'one' mistake... I arrived at MGM on April 1st. I 'fooled' them. I 'showed up'".

No one, of course, has ever accused Moore of being Sir John Gielgud. Yet it seems safe to say that no one, other than Roger Moore, thinks he's bad at all. And Moore's readiness to undersell himself apparently doesn't end with the professional. Mention, for instance, all that saintly devotion he's getting from half a globe full of adoring women and he'll say: "I'm physically wrong for the role of Templar. The Saint should have steel blue eyes and a strong hairline, and should be muscular and lithe".

The put-downs go on like that. "It's better", Moore says, "to knock yourself than have other people knock you. You don't get hurt that way". Probably so, but there's more to the self-degradation than that. "It's not humility, false or otherwise", a friend, director Charles Isaacs, says. "Roger's not a humble man. He sincerely thinks life has been good to him. He truly lacks vanity". Moore explains things another way. Says he: "I've always lacked 'confidence'". The trouble started, he thinks, with a boyhood bout with excessive weight.

Born the only child of a London policeman, Moore remembers his parents "ridiculing" his obesity. "I recall once when I tried on a new trench coat, my father remarked that I looked lick a sack of mud tied in the middle with a belt".

The ribbing took its toll socially. "I wasn't a good mixer", he says, "and until my early teens I had absolutely no knowledge of sex. I remember falling in love with a girl and never getting to hold her hand, let alone kiss her".

When he was a teen-ager, however, Moore says that "the weight started disappearing. I know my face became thin because mother said I looked like John Carradine". He didn't look like Carradine at all. The look he was developing, however, was one which friend Isaacs says the studios call "the male starlet" look. And Isaacs also feels it worked "for and against Roger". It got him contracts with the studios, Isaacs explains, but stopped him from getting the meatier leading man roles.

(...)

Director-friend Charles Isaacs thinks that's all to the good of the business. "Roger has matured into a strongly handsome, thoroughly professional actor", he says, "and there aren't too many of those about these days". Moore says his acting days could be numbered, however. "The thing I've always wanted to do is direct. I'll continue acting - or what they call 'acting' - until I can call my cards and just direct".

If so, he won't be putting himself dosn in that area. "I'm going to be a good director", he concludes. "And you can call that one big, fat conceit!".

Read our previous stories of the month

August - September - October - November - December 2003

January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December 2004

January - February - March 2005