Author Dylan Jones regaled the anecdote to The Telegraph at the press launch of his new biography David Bowie: A Life, stating: “One of the weirdest people to be in Bowie’s orbit was Roger Moore.
Jones continued: “Kureishi told me this story, that when David Bowie moved to Switzerland at the end of the Seventies to escape tax and drug dealers, he didn’t know anybody there. He was in this huge house on the outskirts of Geneva - he knew nobody.
“One day, about half-past five in the afternoon, there’s a knock on the door, and there he was: ‘Hello, David.’ Roger Moore comes in, and they had a cup of tea. He stays for drinks, and then dinner, and tells lots of stories about the James Bond films. They had a fantastic time - a brilliant night.”
“But then, the next day, at 5.30… Knock, knock, it’s Roger Moore. He invites himself in again, and sits down: ‘Yeah, I’ll have a gin and tonic, David.’ He tells the same stories - but they’re slightly less entertaining the second time around.
It was apparently here where the burgeoning friendship came to an end.
“After two weeks [of Moore turning up] at 5.25pm - literally every day - David Bowie could be found underneath the kitchen table pretending not to be in.”
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Whether this was why Bowie turned down a role in 1985 007 film A View to a Kill opposite Moore is unknown...
Jones' new biography saw the author interview over 150 people with some sharing such personal stories that they refused to be quoted on the record.
Bowie died aged 69 in January 2016 while Moore passed away earlier this year at the age of 89.
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