On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, released in 1969, was the sixth film in the James Bond series. Sean Connery had decided to retire the role after You Only Live Twice, Eon Productions replaced him with the almost unknown Australian actor and model, George Lazenby. The director Peter R. Hunt, who had been film editor and 2nd Unit director on the previous Bond films told the Washington post before the movie was released:

We wanted someone who oozed sexual assurance, and we think this fellow has that. Just wait til the women see him on screen … I am not saying he is an actor. There is a great deal of difference between an actor and a film star. Didn’t they find Gary Cooper when he was an electrician?

The movie was based on the tenth novel in Ian Fleming’s Bond series and was first published in the United Kingdom by Jonathan Cape on 1 April 1963. Over 60,000 copies of the book were sold in the first month. Fleming had written it at his home in Jamaica while Dr. No was being filmed nearby.