“It is with a heavy heart that we must announce our loving father, Sir Roger Moore, has passed away today in Switzerland after a short but brave battle with cancer. The love with which he was surrounded in his final days was so great it cannot be quantified in words alone.”
Moore began his career on British television in the ’40s, breaking into the film world in the ’60s.
After a successful turn as Simon Templar in British TV show The Saint, Moore got his license to a killer payday, landing the coveted role of James Bond in 1973’s American-set caper, Live and Let Die. (He famously replaced George Lazenby, who portrayed Bond just once, in 1969’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.)
For Bond fans, Moore was known for bringing a more affectionate angle to the role—a sort of a Don Juan-ish Bond—a different take from the hard-charging, female-slapping Sean Connery version. It worked for movie audiences, too, as Moore would end up reprising his role in six more titles, including The Man With the Golden Gun (1974), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), Moonraker (1979), For Your Eyes Only (1981), Octopussy (1983), and A View to a Kill (1985).
The family’s statement noted that “The affection our father felt whenever he walked on to a stage or in front of a camera buoyed him hugely and kept him busy working into his 90th year.”
Moore is survived by his three children, Deborah, Geoffrey, and Christian.
English actor Roger Moore poses as 007, with a Lotus Esprit Turbo, on the set of the James Bond film ‘For Your Eyes Only’ in Cortina d’Ampezzo, Italy, March 1981. (Keith Hamshere/Getty Images)
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Actor Roger Moore and actress Jane Seymour on the set of “Live And Let Die”. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
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Actors Roger Moore and Christopher Lee on the set of “The Man With The Golden Gun”. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
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Actor Roger Moore and actress Lois Chiles on the set of “Moonraker”. (Sunset Boulevard/Corbis via Getty Images)
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A matte shot of English actor Roger Moore as 007, clinging to a fire engine ladder in a publicity still for the James Bond film ‘A View To A Kill’, 1984. The background has been composited in by hand, to simulate the front projection effect used in the film. (Keith Hamshere/Getty Images)
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Roger Moore on set of the James Bond movie ‘A View to a Kill’ with half a car during filming in Paris, France in August 1984. (Larry Ellis/Express/Getty Images)
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Photo of Roger Moore as James Bond. (Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images)
Michael Ochs Archives
Comic actor Peter Sellers attempting to paint fellow actor Roger Moore’s toenails at Sellers’ home in Beverly Hills, California, circa 1975. (Terry O’Neill/Getty Images)
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English actor Roger Moore and his wife, Italian actress Luisa Mattioli, on their honeymoon in Cannes, France17th April 1969. (Photo by Reg Lancaster/Daily Express/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
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British actor Roger Moore and his one-year-old son Christian on the set of The Man with the Golden Gun, directed by Guy Hamilton. (Photo by Jacques Dejean/Sygma via Getty Images)
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British actor Roger Moore and his wife Cristina Tholstrup pose on the red carpet as they arrive for the 2015 Princess Grace Awards Gala, on September 5, 2015 in Monaco. AFP PHOTO / VALERY HACHE (Photo credit should read VALERY HACHE/AFP/Getty Images)
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Sir Roger Moore signs copies of his book “Bond on Bond” at HMV, Oxford Street on October 22, 2012 in London, England. (Ben Pruchnie/WireImage)
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