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| Image: Ian Fleming at work in his study at Goldeneye, in Jamaica. On his wrist is his Rolex Explorer I. |
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Click here for complete *.pdf version of "Discovered: James Bond's Rolex," WatchTime (February 2009), by Dell Deaton |
Secondly, the Live and Let Die Rolex is a divers’ watch; hardly what men wore daily in the 1950s.We know how Bond’s watch had to perform here, because he “looked at the Rolex on his wrist” while underwater.
He was at the close of a 300-yard dive in Jamaican waters, on a well-prepared mission to place mines on a smuggling vessel, moored at an anchorage of about 30 feet. His agency quartermaster, Q Branch, has supplied him with a wetsuit and other special-purpose equipment for the assignment. It’s likely that Q had provided this particular watch as well, and that Bond did not choose the Live and Let Die Rolex for himself. (Years later, in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, we learn that Q Branch actually keeps an off-the-shelf inventory of Rolex wristwatches, or at least came to do so by 1963.)
For Live and Let Die,
I think the plot simply called for 007 to check his watch in mid-swim in
order to build tension at a key point in the exposition. As a diver
himself,
Fleming knew that a typical wristwatch was unsuitable; he needed to
cite
a specific brand to make that awareness clear. Being an accomplished
journalist, he would have researched options.
Finally, the lack of any further specifics on this Rolex, and no
reference whatsoever to the brand in his next eight books, classify it
as a watch Fleming researched rather than experienced.
Most likely, he chose Rolex because of its advertising, which emphasized
waterproof case integrity.
