Renowned British actor Roger Moore who held longest James Bond role dies at 89

British actor Roger Moore, who won international fame playing secret agent James Bond, died on May 23 aged 89, his family said on the actor's official Twitter account.

They said he had died in Switzerland of cancer. His 12 years as James Bond, the British agent with a voracious appetite for danger and sex, made Moore a millionaire as well as a heartthrob the world over.

British actor Roger Moore was never one to boast about his acting ability but then the facts spoke for themselves -- he played James Bond in more films than any other man.

Known for his ironically raised eyebrow and deadpan quips, Moore's take on the suave superspy was more tongue-in-cheek than that of his manly predecessor Sean Connery.

But he outgunned Connery and all the other actors to have played 007 by taking the role he fondly called "Jimmy Bond" in a record number of seven films.

Moore was also one of the last of the old-style movie stars, who counted Frank Sinatra and David Niven among his friends and lived in luxury in Switzerland and the French Riviera.

He went on to become a real-life hero as an ambassador for UNICEF, even as he downplayed his own talents.
"I'm not that cold-blooded killer type. Which is why I play it mostly for laughs," he once said.

Born Roger George Moore, on October 14, 1927 in the London suburb of Stockwell, he was the only son of a police constable and his wife, and had a happy childhood.

"I've not done badly for a boy from Stockwell, where I used to gaze at the silver screen in wonderment, little realising I'd be a part of this magical world," he wrote in his autobiography, "My Word Is My Bond."

Moore began his acting career as an extra in the 1940s before studying at the Royal...