STELLA RIMINGTON: THE REAL BADASS BEHIND JAMES BOND’S ‘M’

STELLA RIMINGTON: THE REAL BADASS BEHIND JAMES BOND'S 'M'

1)

M - played by Dame Judi Dench - tells Pierce Brosnan's James Bond in their first scene, "I think you're a sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War." She maintains steely eye contact with 007 and tells him in her signature quiet but dangerous tone, "If you think for one moment I don't have the balls to send a man out to die, your instincts are dead wrong."

In the films, Barbara Mawdsley, known only as "M," runs MI6 with calculating precision and efficiency, yet few fans of James Bond realize the beloved matriarch is based on a real-life badass.

M's inspiration - Dame Stella Rimington - was the first woman ever appointed to be the director of MI5. Rimington's appointment in 1992 also marked the first time a director's identity was publicized. Until that point, heads of the secretive agencies MI5 and MI6 remained hidden from the public.

2)

James Bond's M helmed similar fights against fictional organizations, though ones that are much more exaggerated in their world-ending implications, until 2012 when she was tragically killed in Skyfall. The character's death marked the end of Dench's 17-year portrayal of M across seven Bond films (except for a cameo in Spectre).

3)

"My two daughters and I were subject to enormous media attention. It was a period of great upheaval. But my children have always supported me and my career," she told the Daily Telegraph in 2019.

It's widely believed that the Bond producers based M, as portrayed by Dench, on Rimington. Dench, however, has denied the imitation. Still, the similarities are impossible to ignore.

Dench's M wears similar clothing to what the press often photographed Rimington wearing, with her hair cropped to the same short pixie cut Rimington still sports almost 30 years after her retirement.

4)

In the late 1960s, while on assignment with her diplomat husband in New Delhi, India, Rimington grew restless. In her role as a diplomat's wife, Rimington was often relegated to inane coffee runs and other errands for her husband.

In 2019, Rimington recalled how a man in New Delhi tapped her on the shoulder with a "pssst," and asked, "Do you want to be a spy?"

When she went to his office, Rimington realized the mystery man was the head of the MI5 office in India - a Cold War hotbed of intelligence agents due to its strategic location between East and West.

5)

The man needed a typist clerk and hired Rimington. In her new job with MI5, Rimington wasn't recruiting KGB agents at glamorous parties or India's alleys; instead, she pecked at a keyboard with two fingers. When she returned to London in 1969, Rimington knew she wanted a life with MI5.

Though she overcame a culture of sexism and misogyny and was the first woman in her position, she said MI5 realized that diversity is a source of strength.

"Men and women have different skills, different ways of looking at things," she told Body and Soul in 2019.

6)

The government's public announcement of Rimington as the head of MI5 in 1992 surprised the public.

In the interview with Body and Soul, Rimington blamed the enormous amount of publicity on her gender and the generalized belief that everyone "thought that the intelligence services were run by men like James Bond or George Smiley," referring to the John le Carré character.

Rimington spearheaded operations in counterterrorism, counterespionage, and countersubversion until her retirement in 1996.

Like many of her predecessors and colleagues, she now writes spy thrillers using her vast knowledge and intelligence experience.

In 2002, she published Open Secret: The Autobiography of the Former Director-General of MI5, followed by 11 spy novels.

A sexist, misogynist dinosaur. A relic of the Cold War [James Bond Essentials]

"M"- Good night. The Prime Minister's talked to Moscow.

They're saying it was an accident during a routine training exercise.

"007"- Governments change. The lies, they're the same.

M- What else do we know about the Jana syndicate top-flight

007- Army dealers headquartered in St. Petersburg first outfit to restock the Iraqis during the Gulf War; the headman's unreliably described no photographs, and the woman on the top there only confirmed contact.

M- Would you care for a drink?

007- Thank you, your predecessor kept some cognac on the top.

M- I prefer bourbon. Ice?

007- Yes.

M- We pulled the files on anyone who might have had access or authority at 7:00. Our top name on the list is no friend of yours, I understand.

007- Ourumov. They made him a general.

M- He sees himself as the next Iron Man of Russia, where our political analysts rule him out. He doesn't fit the profile of a traitor.

007- Are these the same analysts who said the golden eye couldn't exist, who said the helicopter posed no immediate threat and wasn't worth following?

M- You don't like me. Bond. You don't want my methods. You think I'm a bean-counter accountant more interested in my numbers and your instincts.

007- You thought it had a girl's name.

M- Good. Because I think you're a sexist misogynist dinosaur, a relic of the Cold war whose boyish charms.

They wasted on me appealing to that young woman I sent to evaluate you.

misogynist

= a person who dislikes, despises or is strongly prejudiced against women.

007- Or intakes.

M- Not quite, 007.

If you think for one moment I don't have the balls that send a man out to die, your instincts are wrong.

I've no compunction about sending you to your death, but I wouldn't do it on a whim, even with the old cavalier attitude toward life.

I want you to find a golden eye.

I find out who took it, what they plan to do with it, and stop it.

And if you should come across a hoarder's mouth guilty or not, I don't want you running off on some kind of Vendetta. Avenging Alec Trevelyan will not bring him back.

007- You didn't get him killed.

M- Neither did you. Don't make it personal. Bond, Come back alive.

STELLA RIMINGTON

The Private Life of an MI5 Spy - Stella Rimington

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MtwcRTP0gwo