Last Man Standing: Tales from Tinseltown

I'm a huge fan of Sir Roger who not only enjoyed a lengthy and successful career in show business but has worked as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF following on from him hanging up his PPK back in the mid 1980s. Its probably fair to say that he has become a popular and well respected national treasure as he ages gracefully.

When I grew up in the 1970s and 80s Moore was a huge star; in between making the Bond movies (which I grew up watching) he also made some excellent actions movies, specially designed to watch with your Dad: Gold, Sea Wolves, North Sea Hijack, Wild Geese and Cannonball Run for example, not to mention TV series such as The Saint and my personal favourite, The Persuaders:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t99QQIXez4M

In his third outing as an author “Tales from Tinseltown” its clear that his off screen life was almost as interesting as what happened to him while on set. The book lives up to its title (sub-title: Last Man Standing; a quote from Frank Sinatra, ‘Who's going to be left to turn the light off?', Roger hopes it will be him) as its essentially Rodge relaying decades worth of anecdotes to Gareth Owen. He's never nasty or malicious when he name checks practically every movie star from the 1950s onwards. The tales are all relayed in a lighthearted manner, along with some candid photographs. These snaps highlight Rodge modelling high fashion over the decades along with him clowning around: my personal favourite is Peter Sellers painting Rogers toenails for some forgotten reason.

The book itself is split into eight chapters:

1) The Fun - and Feisty - Leading Ladies
2) The Pinewood Years
3) Stage-struck
4) On-set Tales
5) The Good Guys (and a Few Rascals)
6) The Rat Pack
7) The Creative Geniuses
8) The Producers

From time to time Sir Roger adds a few thoughts which didn't make it into his autobiography and the mood dips as he reminisces about friends who have died, gone to “that great cutting room in the sky” as he says but on the whole is an upbeat entertaining giggle from beginning to end. I also like the fact that Roger knows that he's been lucky for three reasons: the secrets of his success? ... he looked

‘like a hero ... can remember lines and ... work cheaply'.