Which James Bond Actor Was the Greatest Swordsman?

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Women dated: Vanessa Redgrave (1971-86), Whoopi Goldberg (1990-92), Oksana Grigorieva (1995-2007)  

The man with the second-shortest run as Bond (just two films) also has a fairly unknown dating track record. Although what he lacks in quantity he makes up for in variety. It's hard to imagine three more different women than Vanessa, Whoopi, and Oksana (whom you may remember as the object of Mel Gibson's affection/rage in recent years).

Women dated: Doorn van Steyn (1946-53), Dorothy Squires (1953-68), Wenche Myrhe (1963), Luisa Mattioli (1969-1996), Christina "Kiki" Tholstrup (2002-)

The least beefy (and oldest) Bond actor, Moore has led a relatively unexciting love life. He's on his fourth marriage and there have been some scandals (left wife no. 1 for wife no. 2; left wife no. 2 for wife no. 3), but out of this bunch, Moore is the least likely to find strange panties in between the cracks of the sofa.

Women dated: Cassandra Harris (1977-91), Julianne Phillips (1993-94), Kathryn Kinley (1993-94), Keely Shaye Smith (1994-), Barbara Orbison, Brenda Starr, Denice Lewis, Tatjana Patitz

The maddeningly handsome Brosnan has had a strange run with the ladies. First wife Cassandra Harris, a Bond girl herself in the Roger Moore-era For Your Eyes Only, died of ovarian cancer in 1991 at age 43. Three years later, he met journalist Keely Shaye Smith, whom he married in 2001, and this marriage has made him what you might call the most famous anti-swordsman in Hollywood. 

Brosnan seems not to age or change at all, and could have starlets lining up for his attention tomorrow, while his wife has famously doubled in size. We don't say this to be cruel, but because we consider it a fact: Nine out of 10 men in his situation would have moved on.

Perhaps there's more to life than "swordsmanship." Perhaps we should make a list of the Bond actors who have really and truly found the one thing that conquers all —"love"—and perhaps Brosnan would come in first and second place on it.

Nah, that'd be a dumb list.

Women dated: Fiona Loudon (1991-1994), Heike Makatsch (1997-2004), Kate Moss (2004), Sienna Miller (2005), Satsuki Mitchell (2005-2010), Rachel Weisz (2010-)

Never before has Bond been blonde.

Never before has Bond been cut like an Olympic athlete.

Never before has Bond been so incapable of hiding his private life. Daniel Craig is arguably the first Bond of the Internet era. In days gone by, actors who played the debonair spy were able to do at least some of their conquesting in stealth mode. We're pretty sure we'll never have the full story on what those old Bonds did when the tuxedo was off, but sadly we know Craig's whole story: Married to Fiona Loudon for a few years; dated German actress/singer Heike Makatsch for the better part of a decade; was engaged to but did not wed producer Satsuki Mitchell; married Rachel Weisz last summer.

Sorry, Craig, but this stuff is all online. It's hard to be a man of mystery when the Internet is always there to blow your cover. 

Women dated: Shelly Winters (1954-55), Lana Turner (1958), Joanne Gilbert (1958), Diane Cliento (1958-73), Brigitte Bardot (1968), Jill St. John (1971), Micheline Roquebrune (1975-present), Lynsey de Paul (1989), Sule Lloyd, Gina Rowlands, Carole Mallory, Betty Kelly, Julie Hamilton, Maxine Daniels, Claudine Auger, Raquel Welch, Ursula Andress, Lana Wood, Magda Konopka

Discussions of Sean Connery's love life, unfortunately, focus less on his swordsmanship than his pugilism. There's a very unpleasant story (which you can read about here) about Connery slugging his wife, Diane Cliento, in a jealous rage while the two were staying in Spain where Connery was filming The Hill (1964).

Connery has always denied the story, but he hasn't helped that denial by making statements on occasion that implied he thinks that sometimes it's OK to hit a woman. The perhaps justified criticism Connery has received has left him wary of discussing relationships. He may be the consensus best Bond ever, but don't hold your breath for an autobiography (or even an interview) that will tell all the racy tales of his swashbuckling heyday. 

Women dated: Jill St. John (1969), Christina Gannett (1971-1995), Pam Shriver (2002-2008), Barbra Streisand, and numerous unidentified women

Lazenby will forever be considered one of the great fools in movie history. An Australian model, he lucked into an interview to be Connery's successor and bullshitted his way into the job, providing a list of fake acting credentials from European films. The director Peter Hunt and producer Albert R. Broccoli knew they didn't have an actor on their hands, but they liked Lazenby's mojo, what Hunt called his "sexual assurance."

Lazenby as Bond made one film—On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), which seems to get better with age—and opted out of his contract. He grew a beard and started talking a bunch of hippy gobbledygook, and the Bond franchise—though it had given him the key to the city—was glad to be rid of him. Pretty standard stuff.

The rest of Lazenby's career has been that of a B-list guy with a B-plus name. It is said that he liked sex quite a lot, and had quite a lot of it. An article in the Daily Mail characterizes him as a "serial womanizer," but the fact was who George Lazenby was sleeping with was simply not news outside of his brief Bond era.

Women dated: Ann Todd (1930), Merle Oberon (1930), Carole Lombard (1930), Wendy Barrie (1935), Viginia Bruce (1937), Norma Shearer (1939), Primula Rollo (1940-46), Hjordis Tersmeden (1948-83), Paulette Goddard (1950), Grace Kelly (1955), Marlene Dietrich (1956), Ginger Rogers (1957), Deborah Kerr, Evelyn Keyes, Hedy Lamarr, Doris Duke, Margot Fonteyn, Loretta Young, Mae West, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe, Princess Margaret 

David Niven played Bond in the comedy Casino Royale in 1967. The movie is a footnote to the proper Bond canon, and was also not very funny. Niven, though, was a funny chap—a happy-go-lucky, extremely popular Englishman in Hollywood. A review of a biography in the New York Times describes Niven as "a world-class swordsman" who is said to have bagged "Merle Oberon, whom he almost married, Rita Hayworth, Ava Gardner, Marilyn Monroe and, possibly, Grace Kelly and Princess Margaret." 

Those substantial charms, apparently, wore off pretty quickly with wife Hjordis Tersmeden, by the way. Their 35-year marriage was by most accounts totally miserable.