Local Connection: Ian Fleming's Character James Bond Was Named After A Bird Scientist Who Worked At Philly's Academy Of Natural Sciences

Jon Caroulis at phillymag.com offers a piece on the man Ian Fleming "stole" his name from for his iconic fictional character, James Bond.

If you watch tonight’s BBC in America production of Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond, here’s one fact the film might omit: Ian Fleming named his master spy after a Philadelphia bird scientist who spent most of his career at Philly’s Academy of Natural Sciences. Here’s what we know about him:

The original “James Bond grew up on the Main Line, was educated in England and eventually lived in Chestnut Hill,” says Academy Senior Fellow Robert Peck, who got to known Bond during the final decades of his life.
     
Bond worked at the Academy from the 1920s up to his death in 1989. He was one of many ornithologists who contributed specimens from the Caribbean to the institution’s extensive bird collection. Bond even wrote a book on the region, Birds of the West Indies (1936), which is what caught Fleming’s attention when he began writing Casino Royale.

You can read the rest of the piece via the below link:

http://www.phillymag.com/ticket/2014/01/29/fun-fact-james-bond-named-bird-scientist-worked-phillys-academy-natural-sciences/?utm_source=iContact&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=EDIT:%20Ticket%20(Weekender)&utm_content=

You can also read an earlier post on Fleming: The Man Who Would Be Bond via the below link:

http://www.pauldavisoncrime.com/2014/01/tonight-on-bbc-america-fleming-man-who.html