When HM Queen Elizabeth apparently leapt out of a helicopter and unfolding a Union Jack flag to mark the beginning of the London Olympics in 2012, she brought the watching world to their feet in surprise.
Now, author Craig Brown reveals that the moment, created by English film director Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire, Trainspotting) was inspired by the opening sequence of 1977 James Bond thriller The Spy Who Loved Me.
In his new book A Voyage Around the Queen, serialised in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper, Brown quotes Boyle describing how he’d remembered the sequence whereby James Bond played by Roger Moore skis to the edge of a mountain cliff then jumps off, fortunately withy parachute which opens to reveal the UK’s Union Jack flag, and all before the film’s opening credits.
Brown writes that Boyle and his team visited the Queen to ask how her lookalike should be dressed for the sequence. It was the Queen’s dresser Angela Kelly who went to ask the sovereign if she would like to be involved, and the Queen agreed immediately – on condition that she got to say, “Good evening, Mr Bond.”
The film premiered at the London Olympic opening ceremony on July 27 2012, when it was watched by the largest global audience in the history of British television.
The Queen succeeded in repeating the feat of a surprise film performance 10 years later during the Platinum Jubilee celebrations to mark her 70 years on the throne. She appeared, equally unexpectedly, in a film with Paddington Bear, in which she confided she carried a handbag at all times because that was where her marmalade sandwiches were kept.