Sir Manfield Smith-Cumming
James Bond’s boss, M, director of the British Secret Service, has been played (in the Eon Bond movies) by Bernard Lee, Robert Brown and Judi Dench. But there’s another individual who has also contributed to M’s development over the past 50 years: real-life naval-intelligence officer Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, who is the inspiration for M’s being referred to by a single initial. (More on the inspiration for the character here.) In 1909, Smith-Cumming was a founder of Britain’s Secret Service Bureau. He was well known for initialing documents with the letter “C”. After his death, the letter came to stand for “chief,” and other Secret Service heads used it too. And what’s M’s full fictional name? According to the novel The Man with the Golden Gun, M is Sir Miles Messervy, a retired vice admiral and knight commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George.
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