This is the kind of morning which persuaded Ian Fleming to build his blue-and-white bungalow on the cliffs at Oracabessa and to call it Goldeneye, now the title of a two-hour drama about the former intelligence agent who gave birth to fiction's most famous spy, James Bond.

The film brings Fleming back to Goldeneye in the form of Charles Dance, who plays the agent-turned-author in a warts-and-all portrait based on John Pearson's biography.

Fleming could be very charming when it suited him, witty and entertaining in the company of people who pleased him or whom he wanted to please. But to those he didn't care for, he could be cold and remote, self-absorbed and brusque. You had to be a gilded character to receive an invitation to the rather basic bungalow that was his clifftop eyrie.

Noel Coward was a neighbour and a friend, and one of the favoured guests. He has returned to Jamiaca, too, in the guise of Julian Fellowes, to help recreate the charmed Fleming circle for the film.

Phyllis Logan stars as Anne, the witty, socialite wife. The Flemings' friends, the Duchess of Westminster and the fabulously rich Ivar Bryce, are played by Marsha Fitzalan and her real-life husband, Patrick Ryecart.

Like Fleming, Charles Dance is tall, slim and elegant, favours navy blue clothing, is devoted to physical fitness, and smokes cigarettes. Otherwise, the two men are remarkably unalike: Fleming was dark-haired, like his hero; Dance has been happily and faithfully married to the same woman. Fleming was flamboyant and a spendthrift; Dance is introspective and careful with his money. (He needs to be. He has, he says, a whopping mortgage on a rambling house he cannot really afford.)

Yet, when Dance is in make-up, sporting the navy blue safari suits which Flemind had specially tailored, cocktail glass in hand and cigarette holder clamped between his teeth, there is an eerie likeness between the two men.

Would he have liked the man he's portraying? ‘I think it would very much depend on whether he liked me,’ says Dance.

He is sitting in the main bedroom at Goldeneye, where Fleming hammered out his Bond stories at a rate of 2000 words a day on an old Imperial Good Companion typewriter. The bungalow has no window-panes, merely slatted shutters to keep out the direct sunlight and the prying eyes of unwelcome visitors.

Anthony Eden came here to recuperate from the illness which finished him as Prime Minister. Noel Coward, who also had a house on the island, dubbed the bungalow ‘Goldeneye, nose and throat’ because he thought it looked like a clinic.

It was here that the Flemings married and, full of champagne and happiness, buried their green wedding cake in the sand rather than risk Coward's cook, who had baked it, finding it.

Fleming didn't marry until he was 43, and then, too, with misgivings; Dance, who is precisely the same age, has been married for 19 years and has two children.

‘John Pearson says in his book that Fleming got off with women because he couldn't get on with them,’ says Dance. ‘Maybe he's right. Maybe Fleming didn't like women.’

As an actor much in demand, Dance spends a lot of time away from his wife, Joanna, and their children, Oliver, 14, and Rebecca, eight. ‘We miss each other terribly,’ he admits.

‘The longer we're married, the more I go away, and the more difficult it gets. You'd think it'd get easier, but it doesn't.

‘I don't, and never did, spend evenings in the pub with the lads,’ he says. ‘I can think of nothing more boring than doing that. I have two or three male friends, and I certainly don't dislike the company of men, but I do like to be with women.’

And women must like to be with him. As a student, he worked for a time as a labourer to earn his tuition fees. It left him with a pair of barn-door shoulders and a remarkable physique. He may be slim, but delicate he ain't. Like Fleming, who was a fitness fanatic, he looks after himself. When he flew to Jamaica, his rowing machine went with him, and he used it every day.

‘All an actor has is his mind and his body, and he should look after them both,’ Dance says judiciously. ‘I do whatever I need to do for the job I'm doing. If it's shirt-off time, there'd better be something worth showing.’

It is most definitely shirt-off time in Goldeneye. He gambols in the sea with Phyllis Logan, then with Jamaican model Denise Thompson.

While he's playing one role, Dance is usually planning another. He has always chosen his parts with meticulous care, weighing the script and the story before agreeing to a project.

‘I'm choosy when I can afford to be, when there's enough money in the bank,’ he says with undue honesty.

One role he did not play was that of James Bond. In fact, he decided not to audition for the role. ‘I swallow hard at times and think, “Shoot, I could do with some money.”

‘But I think Tom (Dalton, the current Bond) is a wonderful choice. Anyway, they might have done a screen test and decided I wasn't the man for the job. Then I would had to suffer the humiliation of being rejected.’ He chuckles, implying this is being said in jest.

They're calling for him on the set.

‘I'd better go. I think it's time to bury the cake,’ he says, grinning.

Back to The Archive