Sir Roger Moore, R.I.P.

Many of you, my fantastic readers, remember Sir Roger Moore
as one of the actors who played James Bond in the movies of
that franchise; a few of you may remember Moore as The Saint
in that British television series which also aired on our side of
"The Pond". Still others might remember him for other roles in
movies and television shows here and in Britain. A fantastic
actor, a suave and smooth gentleman, a spokesman for UNICEF,
a grand wit, and a loving husband and father, Sir Roger Moore
passed away after a bout with cancer on May 23 at the age of 89.

The star in seven Bond films, Moore was behooved to assist
UNICEF when he saw first hand the shocking poverty in India
when he was there filming his sixth Bond film "Octopussy".
He joined friend and fellow actor Audrey Hepburn in this
endeavor, as they became the faces for the organization. Moore
also was an avid skiier; he skiied with his family as well as
with his friends liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith
and conservative publisher, author, sailor, and harpsichordist
William F. Buckley, founder and publisher of National Review,
the renown magazine of conservative politics and thought.
While Moore enjoyed the company of a wide variety of
celebrities, he was a conservative throughout his long and
storied life. Although he loved his native Great Britain, he
moved to Monaco to escape his beloved country's confiscatory
tax rates. He gave to charities in addition to doing publicity
for them, but didn't care to be coerced into supporting a large
and unwieldly welfare state. And in the role of British Secret
Agent 007 he was internationally popular with the world's
conservatives, soundly defeating communists (this was, after
all, during the latter years of the Cold War) and anyone
allied with them in the Bond storylines.

Moore's conservatism reached into day-to-day life away from the
film set as well, having been a strong advocate for teaching
children manners, kindness, and consideration for others, once
stating that doing so would result in the children teaching other
adults by their mannerly ways. He was not merely a model
of a quintessential English gentleman, but a sterling example of
a conservative in both public and private life. Rest in Peace,
Sir Roger; your death may have left us shaken, but your legacy
stirs us to emulate you with the example you set for a beautiful life.


MEM