Sir Roger Moore obituary

Former James Bond star Sir Roger Moore has died in Switzerland at the age of 89 after a short battle with cancer, his family has announced.

Sir Roger was the son of a poor London police officer from the back streets of Lambeth who grew up to become James Bond and The Saint, making him one of the most successful actors of his generation.

He will always be remembered for his role as 007, starring in seven Bond films, but made his name in television and spent his later life working as a goodwill ambassador for Unicef.

• The Bond years

When Sean Connery decided Diamonds are Forever was to be his curtain-call in the role of 007, there was a concern that his replacement would struggle to fill his shoes.

But with the release of Live and Let Die in 1973 Sir Roger triumphed with a performance which skilfully blended strength with humour.

Six more Bond films followed over 12 years - The Man with the Golden Gun, The Spy who Loved Me, Moonraker, For Your Eyes Only, Octopussy and A View to a Kill.

His James Bond was light-hearted, more so than any other official actor to portray the character. He often portrayed 007 as somewhat of a playboy, with tongue firmly in cheek, but also as a very capable and seasoned detective.

Sir Roger was the oldest actor to play Bond: he was 45 when he debuted, and 58 when he announced his retirement on December 3, 1985.

At the end of A View to a Kill in 1985 he decided to hand back his licence to kill, saying: "I realised that jumping around with bullets and bombs in my middle-fifties was really daft."

Sir Roger was also quoted in the press as saying that he felt embarrassed to be seen making love scenes with beautiful actresses who were young enough to be his daughters.

• Early years

Sir Roger was born at Aldebert Terrace, Lambeth, in 1927, the only son of a policeman.

He went to primary school in Stockwell and won a scholarship to Battersea Grammar School.

Art was his best and favourite subject and he decided to leave school at the age of 16 to take up a job as an assistant in a London studio specialising in cartoons.

He tried his hand as a film extra on Caesar and Cleopatra at Denham Studios in 1944, where the co-director Brian Desmond Hurst noticed him not just for his tall good looks but for what he described as animal magnetism.

Hurst persuaded Moore's father to pay the 17 guineas a term for a course at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. But he remained for only three of the six terms because of the financial strain he felt he was putting on his parents.

London in 1944 was starved of young actors by the war and he started to achieve success in both the West End and suburban repertory companies, but National Service interrupted his career in 1945 just after the end of the war when he was conscripted into the Royal Army Service Corps as an officer.

At the age of 19, Moore married a girl he had met at Rada, Doorn van Steyn, and he spent several years living with her in one room of her sister's house.

He began a part-time modelling career to supplement his income with Audrey Hepburn in an advertisement for Valderma "to get rid of the blemishes off your back".

• TV stardom

In 1952, Sir Roger met the singer Dorothy Squires at the peak of her career and, after divorcing Doorn, they married a year later in the United States.

He had decided to try his luck in America and it was there that he finally lost his cockney accent after Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios sent him to a dialogue director.

He made a number of fairly unimpressive films, including The Last Time I Saw Paris, and it was television which made his reputation with a series of roles as dashing heroes.

It began with Columbia's Ivanhoe series which was made in Britain, followed by The Alaskans and then Maverick.

In a brief return to films, he agreed to co-star with Italian actress Luisa Mattioli in The Rape of the Sabine Women in Rome in 1961.

He fell in love at first sight with Luisa and they set up home together. His marriage to Dorothy Squires was finally dissolved in 1969 after she at last agreed to divorce after years of acrimony.

In 1962 Moore returned to television after he was picked for the part of Leslie Charteris's hero Simon Templar, The Saint. It was the role he played for seven years and, with it, came fame and worldwide recognition.

Some believed he would find it impossible to escape the image of The Saint but he returned to television in 1972 in the highly successful series The Persuaders in partnership with Tony Curtis.

• Unicef work and knighthood

In 1983 his life changed when filming his sixth film as James Bond in India.

Shocked at the poverty in India, he became interested in the Third World humanitarian effort. His friend Audrey Hepburn had impressed him with her work for Unicef and he became a Unicef Goodwill Ambassador in 1991.

He was the voice of "Santa" in the Unicef cartoon The Fly Who Loved Me.

Despite having made millions through his film and television career, friends stressed he was one of the most modest and charming actors in the business and all that really mattered were his wife and family.

In 1999, Moore was created a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and a Knight Commander of the Order of the British Empire (KBE) on June 14, 2003.

The citation on the knighthood was for Moore's charity work, which has dominated his public life for more than a decade.

Moore said that the citation "meant far more to me than if I had got it for acting...I was proud because I received it on behalf of Unicef as a whole and for all it has achieved over the years".