I tell you, it happens all the time. I’ll be walking down the street when I hear it – whispering between couples, furtive glances from beautiful women, envious looks from their male companions. Then one will approach me.
“Excuse me, but aren’t you the man who plays James Bond?”
Emboldened by the first, women will then swarm me, yelling, “Pierce! Pierce! Can I have an autograph? How about a kiss? Wanna have my baby?!” Try as I might to get away, hordes of beautiful women flood after me everywhere I go, wanting nothing more than to touch the man who looks exactly like Pierce Brosnan.
Okay, okay – that was a big lie.
I don’t look a damn thing like Pierce Brosnan. Fact is, I look a lot like John Wayne Bobbit. You know, that guy whose wife made like Goldfinger’s laser beam and cut off his…oh, never mind.
But, even though yours truly has nothing in common with James Bond except an initial, there are people who do look like Bond, and like a lot other folks who’ve starred in the films with him. There’s even a company that specializes in James Bond look-alikes: Universal Exports. They can get you anyone from a Brosnan or Connery look-alike to Desmond Llewelyn as Q – the real one, mind you, not a fake.
They can also get you someone who wrote to Kill Bond…Now! a while back. His name is Ian U’Chong, and when he sent his picture, we were dumbstruck. If ever a human being was cast in the exact mold of the big Korean manservant Oddjob, Ian is it. (That’s him at right. Seriously.)
Oddjob (the one from the movie) is a card-carrying member of the James Bond Hall of Fame. He was the epitome of the villainous henchman and defined that part of the Bond formula for years to come. His physical presence and ice-cold stare in the 1964 classic Goldfinger made him one of the most memorable villains to date. Harold Sakata, the imposing actor, Olympian, and professional wrestler who played the role, died of cancer in 1982.
“I’ve been called Oddjob for years and years,” Ian wrote, “but it wasn’t until last year that a friend of mine gave a look-alike agency my phone number. I got a phone call and thought it was a joke. When they asked for a photograph, I sent one of myself in a family setting. They said it was good enough and offered me a job. I couldn’t believe that people would pay me to look like this. I’ve been doing this kind of work ever since.”
The real Oddjob (uh, I mean, the Oddjob in the film) was Korean, Ian’s father is Chinese and his mother is from Goa, Portuguese India. Ian has a day job as a passenger agent at Heathrow Airport (bet no one tries to sneak onto flights there), but even there, he says, the legacy of one of the great Bond henchmen follows him around.
“I often get people shouting, ‘Hey Oddjob’ and more than that I get people whispering ‘it’s the bloke from James Bond.' The airport newspaper did an article on me so most of the workers at the airport call me Oddjob. It’s quite flattering now.”
So how does the look-alike industry compare to the real world? “The look-alike business pays well but it’s not enough to give up my day job. I wish I could do it full-time but sometimes I go for months without a job. However, with the recent resurrection of the Bond films and the new film coming out this year, I’m not doing too badly. I work with a Jaws look-alike and we seem to be booked together a lot. In fact, I’ve only done about three jobs without him.”
Speaking of such, does anyone need a caddy for the upcoming Ian Fleming Foundation Golf Classic? Think about it – on the course at Stoke Poges Golf Club, the very course that Connery’s Bond played against Auric Goldfinger, you could have Oddjob carrying your clubs (hint: if he recommends a certain club, take his advice). Ian would do the job for about $800 U.S., and he even knows where you could rent a Rolls Royce Phantom III. Think of the slides you could show the neighbors.
If Oddjob doesn’t float your boat, there are others. Douglas James does a credible Pierce Brosnan. So credible, in fact, that he doubled for the man himself during the pre-title filming of Tomorrow Never Dies. Pierce was in Malibu with his new baby so James filled in on the set until Pierce could tear himself away from parenthood.
Does your wife have a thing for the silver charm of the older Sean Connery? Kevin McHugh is the “world’s number one Connery double” (who ranks these things, anyway?), and apparently was the photo double for Connery’s ‘98 bomb The Avengers. For late-80’s Bond fans, there’s even a Timothy Dalton double.
Do you know anybody who looks like a character from the Bond movies? Do you look like one yourself? Send us a picture. If we get any, we’ll print them, and we may just make you a star.