Ian Fleming Exhibit in London

The first major exhibition on the creator of James Bond in the centenary of his birth has opened in London. For Your Eyes Only at the Imperial War Museum focuses on the author Ian Fleming’s early life and later career in wartime intelligence, which provided real-life inspiration for his spy character 007. Props from the films, such as Rosa Klebb’s deadly shoes in From Russia With Love, to Halle Berry’s bikini in Die Another Day, are interspersed with material on the author’s life. The naval jacket Fleming wore on the disastrous Dieppe Raid in 1942 features alongside iconic movie memorabilia, such as Daniel Craig’s blood-soaked shirt in Casino Royale. The exhibition explores the extent Fleming based his novels on personal experience and acquaintances and Second World War and Cold War events. Little-known facts, such as Fleming’s remark that he wrote the blueprint for the CIA and ingenious plans to thwart Germany in the war, provide an insight into the mind of the author who created one of the most famous characters in screen history.

For Your Eyes Only: Ian Fleming and James Bond runs from Apr 17 – Mar 1, 2009 and a book of the same name by Ben Macintyre, author of Agent Zigzag, accompanies the exhibition. (Apr 17)