One's conception of a fictional character is a very personal thing. It doesn't matter how hard an author attempts to draw a word picture of his brain child, few readers will see it in exactly the same way. Similarly, no two actors will portray a character in an identical manner.

Certainly, in portraying the Leslie Chateris creation, Simon Templar, otherwise known as "The Saint", I haven't drawn in any way on the impressions of him given by other actors, including George Sanders and Hugh Sinclair, who have played him in the past.

Self-identification is something readers of books very often experience, and I have always felt this way about The Saint. I've been reading him since I was so high. I've always had a mental image of myself in his shoes. In latter years, he has become more and more the type of character I've felt I would rather play than anyone else - so much so, in fact, that I made efforts to obtain the television rights in the stories for myself. I failed (I'm not a millionaire !). So you can imagine my elation when producers Bob Baker and Monty Berman, being much richer than I am, obtained the rights and asked me if I would like to take the part.

There are so many Saint-lovers throughout the world that, from the moment it was announced that I was to become Simon Templar, there were protests from all directions. Every Saint-reader, with his own personal impression of what The Saint was like, had strong ideas on the casting, and in a lot of cases they reckoned that I was about as wide off the mark as Norman Wisdom would have been. Having come tough stock, including having a former London policeman as a father, I pressed on regardless, and if my portrayal of Roger Moore in some people's eyes it's because I happen to be Roger Moore and because, in my own arrogant way, I've got this feeling that the Saint and I have a devil a lot in common.

For the record, let it be admitted that when Leslie Charteris himself heard that I had been cast for the part, he is reported to have made a beeline for the nearest bar, ordered the most exotic-sonding drink that came to mind, and tried hard to forget that such a diabolical thing should have happened to him.

But it must be also recorded, in fairness to Leslie Charteris and to myself, that, after he had seen a few of the TV productions, he admitted that things could have been much worse, and that I was very much less unlike Simon templar than he had anticipated. In fact, he admitted, he rather enjoyed the productions. He even agreed to be photographed with me, which was the final gesture of acceptance. One comment which has been put forward more strongly than any other is that I am too young to be The Saint - which, if I may say so, is sheer nonsense. No one knows how old The Saint is. Leslie Charteris created him in 1930. He is still going strong. If he had progressed with the years, he would certainly be in his mid-fifties or more by now and a bit too old for some of his activities.

He is, in fact, ageless. If Leslie Charteris is fortunate enough to be writing about him in fifty years' time (and authors do live to a ripe old age !), Simon Templar will still be the same age that he has been for the last quarter-of-a-century. Personally, I should place him as being in his middle thirties. It's a good, average age for a man of his type and experience. So, as my own age happens to be thirty-five, I claim that I can't be far off the right age group. And if, as some people say, I look younger than my years this doesn't alter the fact that I have been kicking around the world for this length of time. The time-factor, in fact, has been one of our major problems in bringing the Saint stories to television. The stories themselves span so many years that if they were filmed in chronological order the Saint would certainly be seen growing into middle-age. But we have deliberately avoided dating them in any way. They are all given contemporary settings. But in no case have any of the characters been changed, and this is why, for instance, Inspector Teal crops up only very infrequently. The English policeman belonged to the period Leslie Charteris's own life before he took a home for himself in America and switched the Saint's background more and more to the United States. Inspector Teal, therefore, comes into only those earlier stories in which he was featured, and only a few of these happen to have been selected for the TV series.

In the same way, we have already had inquiries about Templar's secretary, Pat Holmes. Why isn't she in the series ? The answer is very largely the same. We have, in fact, deliberately avoided introducing her because her presence would be an encumbrance in a series which, to a large extent, exploits Simon Templar's penchant for chasing pretty faces !

As soon as the series reached the air in England, letters began pouring in. One query, which will undoubtedly be repeated from all quarters, is, why I don't leave my "Saint" visiting card behind me. The answer is again the time element. The TV Saint does so only when described in the stories as doing so, and he dropped this habit some considerable time ago.

Saint followers, of course, know Simon Templar's background. Those who meet hm for the first time on television may wonder how he earns a living. The answer is that he no longer has to do so. While he may have been regarded as a crook earlier in his career - but always as Robin Hood, charitable type of crook - it is no longer nevessary for him ti take his "cut" from the proceeds of his fabulous robberies. Though he takes the law into his own hands, he is certainly not against the law as such. Leslie Charteris has, in story after story, made it clear just what the Saint's outlook on life is. Let me quote: "I'm a sort of benevolent brigand. I raise hell for crooks and racketeers of all kinds, and make life miserable for policemen, and rescue damsels in distress, and all that sort of things".

What more delightful character could any actor ask to portray ?

 

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