If Daniel Craig’s blockbuster performance in Skyfall hasn’t convinced you that he was born to play 007, maybe this will:

Daniel Craig and James Bond are related.

Ian Fleming brought Bond to life in his first novel, Casino Royale—which celebrates its 60th birthday this year. Fleming wrote the Bond books at his Goldeneye estate in Jamaica, where he also came across the name of ornithologist James Bond printed on the cover of Birds of the West Indies. Fleming was struck by what he later called the “brief, unromantic, Anglo-Saxon and yet very masculine name” and decided it was perfect for the black-haired, blue-eyed MI6 agent he was about to bring into the world.

Casino Royale was a hit, and Fleming responded with 13 additional action-packed Bond books (along with the well-known children’s story Chitty Chitty Bang Bang). Sean Connery brought Bond to the big screen in Dr. No in 1962. He was followed by a half dozen different actors taking on the role of 007.



Daniel Craig became Bond in 2006. And while he’s blonder that most of his predecessors, he may be the only one who can claim that Bond is family.



John of Gaunt, the first Duke of Lancaster and son of King Edward III of England, is in both Craig’s and the ornithologist James Bond’s family trees—making Bond the birder and the latest Bond the superspy half 19th cousins.



Bond’s namesake died in 1989, so he and Craig won’t be bumping into each other at any family reunions. But maybe the family link will inspire the spy to take up a new hobby. He should already own a good pair of binoculars, and after all, it’s in his blood.



—Courtney Manwaring

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