Former Bond star nearly died in explosion

Roger Moore, left, as James Bond in a scene from The Spy Who Loved Me. Photo / AP

Former James Bond star Sir Roger Moore has revealed he almost died during a stunt that went wrong while shooting the 1977 film The Spy Who Loved Me.

The 85-year-old was filming a fight scene with co-star Curt Jurgens when he made a choreography change and was thrown across the room by a special effects blast.

Moore was taken to hospital with several open-wounds and it took him days to recover.

"There's a sequence in The Spy Who Loved Me where I nearly came a cropper (died)," he told the New York Post.

"The audience knows that the villain, Karl Stromberg, played by Curt Jurgens, is going to shoot a missile under a table at Bond.

"They (the producers) had me standing behind a chair which had a steel back to it so that, when the explosion took place, I would be wound-free.

"I, like a stupid idiot, suggested there would be more suspense if Bond was sitting. Nobody mentioned that the seat of the chair was not reinforced.

"The special effects man was a little over-anxious and let off the explosion just before I got up from it (the chair). I was blown out of the chair and had smouldering holes in my back.

"Everyone thought it was a great joke until they saw the flames. It involved a hospital trip and a visit every day to the nurse at the studio to have the dressing (bandage) changed."

- WENN