In honor of Ian Fleming's centenary, here are 100 fascinating facts about the author and his most famous creation.
#1. The James Bond villain Auric Goldfinger was named after the Hungarian architect Ernö Goldfinger.
#2. Fleming threatened to rename Goldfinger 'Goldprick' when the real Goldfinger threatened to sue.
#3. Operation Goldeneye was an Allied plan developed by Ian Fleming during World War II, that monitored Spain after the Spanish Civil War.
#4. Fleming named his Jamaican estate Goldeneye after the operation.
#5. Fleming was a keen book collector and built a library of books that he considered significant in the history of western civilization.
#6. Fleming's father was Valentine Fleming, a Conservative Member of Parliament.
#7. When Valentine Fleming died, Winston Churchill wrote his obituary in the Times of London.
#8. Ian Fleming served in the Second World War in the British Naval Intelligence Division — his codename was 17F.
#9. The children's book Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was written by Ian Fleming.
#10. After leaving Eton, Fleming spent some time in the Austrian Tyrol at Kitzbühel and went on to study in Munich and Geneva.
#11. During the Second World War Fleming was sent to Gibraltar by the British Department of Naval Intelligence to monitor military installations in the Mediterranean.
#12. James Bond himself went to Fettes College in Edinburgh, Scotland, which was attended in real life by Fleming's father and Tony Blair. And Sean Connery was once the school's milkman.
#13.Three actresses have made reappearances as different Bond girls: Martine Beswick and Nadja Regin both first appeared in From Russia with Love, and then appeared in Thunderball and Goldfinger respectively. Maud Adams played 'Andrea' in The Man with the Golden Gun and the title character in Octopussy; she also is an extra in A View to a Kill.
#14. The Times of London placed Fleming at Number 14 in its list of 50 greatest British writers since 1945, beating Salman Rushdie by one place.
#15. In 1960 Fleming was commissioned by the Kuwait Oil Company to write a book on the country and its oil industry. The typescript is titled State of Excitement: Impressions of Kuwait but was never published due to their government's disapproval.
#16. No less a literary authority than Noël Coward declared Ian Fleming "an uncommonly fine writer." Fleming suggested Coward for the role of the villain in the first James Bond film. Coward is said to have responded, "Dr No? No. No. No."
#17. The Ian Fleming novel Moonraker was adapted as a South African radio dramatization in 1956-57 featuring Bob Holness as the voice of James Bond. This made him the second person to play the part. The first actor (and, to date, the only American) to play Bond on screen was Barry Nelson, in a 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale.
#18. During the helicopter sequence towards the end of From Russia With Love, the inexperienced pilot flew too close to Sean Connery, almost killing him.
#19. Jet Packs, as used in Thunderball, are one of the few Bond gadgets that made it to commercial production, if only briefly.
#20. Fleming was born on 7 Green Street, Mayfair, London, just round the corner from the Dukes Hotel, where he thought of the 'shaken, not stirred' Martini for Bond.
#21. Fleming's favorite food was scrambled eggs (Bond also liked them along with such delicacies as beluga caviar).
#22. Fleming smoked 70 cigarettes a day: his preferred brand was 'Morland Specials', a blend of Turkish and Balkan tobacco.
#23. Fleming died of heart failure in 1964, at the age of 56. The date, August 12th, was his son Caspar's 12th birthday.
#24. He was known as a serial womanizer until, at the age of 44, he married Lady Anne Rothermere. He often joked that he wrote Casino Royale to take his mind off the forthcoming wedding.
#25. James Bond was married just once: to Contessa Teresa di Vicenzo, who was killed on their wedding day by arch enemy Ernst Stavro Blofeld. His only (known) child is a son, James, by Japanese secret agent Kissy Suzuki.