Roger Moore, star of 7 James Bond films, TV's 'The Saint,' dies at age 89

Roger Moore, who played the title role in seven James Bond films and starred as a master thief on the 1960s television show The Saint, died Tuesday after a short battle with a cancer.

He was 89 years old.

Moore's family announced his death in a statement posted to the English movie star's Twitter account.

"It is with a heavy heart that we must announce our loving father, Sir Roger Moore, has passed away today in Switzerland after a short but brave battle with cancer," the statement said.

Moore appeared in more Bond films than his friend Sean Connery. And while Connery made the role iconic, Moore made it his own, delivering what Variety described as a "lighter, more humorous take on 007."

For 12 years, from Live and Let Die in 1973 through A View to a Kill in 1985, Moore owned the role of Agent 007, the martini-drinking, lady-loving British spy. His take on the character was compared, inevitably, to the original movie Bond.

"Gone were the macho toughness and ruthlessness of Connery's Bond," wrote Michael Di Leo in The Spy Who Thrilled Us: A Guide to the Best of Cinematic James Bond. "In their place, Moore played up Bond's suave and humorous side, and his films reflected this new tone."

That tone delivered like never before at the box office, with his third run as Bond in The Spy Who Loved Me achieving blockbuster status with $185.4 million in worldwide earnings.

A London policeman's son, Moore credited his mother with ridding him of a working-class accent that might have impeded his portrayal of the supremely cultured Bond.

"She was very particular about behavior and manners and the way you treated people," he once said. "I got a clip round the ear if I said 'ain't.' "

He began performing onscreen in his teens as a spear-carrying extra on the set of a 1945 Shakespeare production. Despite limited dramatic training, he was propelled to Hollywood stardom by his dazzling blue eyes and enviable blond bouffant. The film critic Rex Reed once wrote that Moore was frequently "prettier than his leading ladies."

He became a leading man in the 1950s, although in often-preposterous roles that haunted him for years. In the 1956 Lana Turner costume drama Diane, Moore played a 16th-century French prince with all the elan of what one reviewer described as "a lump of English roast beef."

Claiming he wanted to beat the critics to the punch, Moore frequently made light of his limitations. "My acting range?" he once quipped. "Left eyebrow raised, right eyebrow raised."

He won a following as Simon Templar on the action-romance series "The Saint," which aired for several years on British TV before landing on NBC from 1967 to 1969 and thereafter in perpetual reruns.

The show, loosely based on the Leslie Charteris novels and featuring a rollicking Edwin Astley theme song, starred Moore as a gentleman who uses his wealth and wiles to aid the defenseless. As Templar, he addressed the camera in wry asides, luxuriated in fast cars and the company of beautiful women, and was expertly and unfailingly tailored.

For Moore, Bond was Simon Templar on a grander scale and more satiric.

"My contention about my 'light' portrayal of Bond is this: how can he be a spy, yet walk into any bar in the world and have the bartender recognize him and serve him his favorite drink?" he asked in his 2008 memoir, My Word Is My Bond, written with Gareth Owen.

"Come on," he continued, "it's all a big joke."

Like Connery, Moore was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. He was honored in 2003 for his charitable work with UNICEF.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.