Biography for
John Gardner (VIII) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

20 November 1926, Seaton Delaval, Northumberland, England, UK

Date of Death

3 August 2007, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England, UK (heart attack)

Mini Biography

Educated at King Alfred's School, Wantage and at Cambridge University. After several years as a minister of the church, he bcame an agnostic, moving into a varied career in the theatre and journalism. He began writing popular fiction in the mid 1960s.

IMDb Mini Biography By:

Spouse

Margaret Mercer

(1952 - 1997) (her death) 3 children

Trivia

The author of 16 James Bond novels between 1981 and 1996.

Followed Ian Fleming and Kingsley Amis as the third writer of original James Bond novels in 1981.

In his Bond novels, he made 007 a little less flamboyant, and changed his Aston Martin to a Saab. The women characters were given more depth.

During WWII, he served as a Royal Marine commando in the Middle East and Far East. By his own admission, he was "the worst commando in the world". While learning to fly, he bent an airplane (not an easy thing to do).

Gardner's favorite James Bond novel he wrote was The Man from Barbarossa.

Personal Quotes

Unhappily, I feel I'm probably going to be remembered as "the guy who took over from [Ian] Fleming". I'm very grateful to have been selected to keep [James] Bond alive. But I'd much rather be remembered for my own work than I would for Bond.

On coming up with ideas for his works: I have no idea where plots and characters come from. If you are a professional novelist a writer of the kind of books that I write that's the job, inventing characters and plots.

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