Why David Bowie Hid Under His Kitchen Table from James Bond
For most people, the idea of having a former James Bond for a neighbor probably sounds like a lot of fun. For David Bowie, however, it became a Groundhog Day-type nightmare that eventually sent the singer scurrying under his kitchen table whenever the doorbell rang.
That's the story, anyway, as presented by the new Bowie biography David Bowie: A Life. Author Dylan Jones recounted the tale — one of several presented from his time compiling the book — during a recent interview with The Daily Telegraph.
Jones says that when Bowie moved to Switzerland in the late '70s, he found himself without a social circle. Although that was partly by design, as Bowie was trying to escape some unsavory characters in his life, he was initially happy to make the acquaintance of longtime Bond star Roger Moore.
"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," Jones said. "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."
Unfortunately for Bowie, Moore apparently saw their visit as the first in a daily tradition — and one that's said to have happened more or less identically every day, with the actor stopping by for a drink at 5:30 and regaling Bowie with the same stories from the Bond movie sets. Eventually, the singer-songwriter had enough.
"After two weeks," Jones said, "David Bowie could be found underneath the kitchen table pretending not to be in."
As The Telegraph notes, Moore and Bowie nearly crossed paths in Hollywood years later when Bowie was offered the chance to play villain Max Zorin in the 1985 Bond movie A View to a Kill. Quipping that he wasn't interested in spending "five months watching my stunt double fall off cliffs," Bowie declined.
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