"Roald Dahl"

[00:00:09] Speaker A: Welcome to Spy Fi, guys, where we cover spy facts, spy fiction, and everything in between. I'm Christian. [00:00:14] Speaker B: And I'm Zach. [00:00:15] Speaker A: And today we have a micro. Dot. What do we have? [00:00:18] Speaker B: So, recently, we've been doing a lot of kids movies. We did Spy Kids. We did cars So I thought thought we would talk about a beloved character from our childhood, a man you may know named Roald Dahl. [00:00:32] Speaker A: Oh, where are we going with this? [00:00:34] Speaker B: As you may or may not know, Roald Dahl has some experience in the spy world. And we're going to talk about that today. [00:00:40] Speaker A: Are we going to talk about how he wrote You Only Live Twice for. [00:00:47] Speaker B: Giving anything away? Let's not give anything away. So my source is the book. The Real Roll Doll by Nadia Cohen. Not a long book. I think it's less than 200 pages, if you're curious. Check it out for yourself. So, Roll Doll's adventures begin when he joined the RAF in the early days of World War II. [00:01:05] Speaker A: All right. [00:01:05] Speaker B: And he was assigned to the Number 80 Squadron in North Africa, where he flew a biplane, which is what they flew in the very early days of World War II. [00:01:14] Speaker A: Wow. [00:01:14] Speaker B: Okay, so 19 September, 1940, he was flying what was called a Gloucester Gladiator, which is a biplane, but he was directed to the wrong location, and there was no airstrip when he arrived. [00:01:27] Speaker A: Oh, jeez. [00:01:28] Speaker B: So he ran out of fuel. He was forced to land at 80 miles an hour in the pitch darkness. It was basically a crashed landing. He fractured his skull, smashed his nose, was temporarily blinded. [00:01:39] Speaker A: Oh, God. [00:01:41] Speaker B: So he was not knocked unconscious, though, because the smell of petrol kept him awake, forced the canopy open, and he crawled away before the plane's fuel tanks exploded. But then the heat set off the eight machine guns, which fired bullets off in random directions, but he was not hit. But fortunately, three infantrymen seen the plane crash, and they found him. That's probably saved his life, I think it's safe to say. For weeks, he was unable to open his eyes. His face needed to be restored surgically, and he spent almost six months in the hospital. Now, here's the thing, though. What I didn't mention just now, and neither did Rolled, when he often retounted. The story was that another pilot was flying with him, landed successfully, and stayed with him until help arrived. [00:02:22] Speaker A: Okay. [00:02:23] Speaker B: Now, Nadia notes his tendency to exaggerate and tell tall tales would continue through his writing career. [00:02:29] Speaker A: Wow. [00:02:29] Speaker B: So he exaggerated that story, and it would not be the last one. But the injuries to his back that he sustained would plague him for the rest of his life. So Roald wanted to fly again, but damage to his back forced him to train new recruits until he was noticed by a World War I flying ace named Snoopy. I mean, Major Harold Balfour, who was looking for someone to represent the RAF in the USA. So Roald was sent to DC as an air attache at the British Embassy. So Roald was struck by the contrast between going from a place where people were dying and getting maimed to these fancy cocktail parties, but he also liked the finer things in life, so he was happy to do it and fit in really well. So during this period was when he started his writing career with stories of his adventures in the war, again, often exaggerated. His first story was called Gremlin Lore, which was legends about gremlins in planes that messed with the planes and caused problems for RAF pilots. He also started making friends in high places, including high ranking British officers such as Ian Fleming, who needs no introduction. Roll said Fleming was, quote, a sparky, witty, caustic companion, full of jokes and odd bits of knowledge. Close quote. They admired each other's, similar attitudes about womanizing, drinking, gambling and so on. They also met Canadian spymaster William Stevenson, who passed info to them about FDR, which they then sent on to Churchill. So to say Rold was the spy is kind of true, but in the same way that Rudolph Abel from Bridge of Spies was, in the sense that he didn't infiltrate, he didn't tap anybody's phones, he just passed on what he saw and heard. [00:04:10] Speaker A: I mean, that's like the majority of, especially in that day of intelligence is human like that you're passing on whatever information you could pick up, especially when. [00:04:21] Speaker B: You'Re talking about your ally. So he started his writing, including script writing, and his embassy colleagues didn't understand why his bosses allowed him to do it. And there was a theory not proven in the book that said he was part of the British Security Coordination, or BCS. Now, I've never heard of that. [00:04:40] Speaker A: I've never heard of it either. [00:04:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So Nadia says the BCS had been said to promote British interest in the USA and later turned to training spies. So Stevenson, the Canadian spy master from before, was thought to have been coordinating a network of more than a thousand secret agents during the war. And it would also explain why I rolled ran with so many high rollers. He even spent a weekend with FDR and the First Lady in the summer of 1943 and as always, delivered his observations back to Churchill. You maybe have heard that he was a ladies man during this period. So in that respect, he was somehow of bond. He doesn't kill anybody. Quote, he found that the wives of powerful men often felt neglected by their busy husbands and could be persuaded to let all kinds of valuable tidbits slip if they were given enough of the right kind of attention. [00:05:25] Speaker A: Wow. [00:05:27] Speaker B: Losses in the war also lent to fewer men in general, so that helped. He would end up marrying Patricia Neal, the actor. Have you ever heard of her? [00:05:35] Speaker A: No. [00:05:37] Speaker B: Yeah, the name sounded familiar. She's like an actor from like the but this was after that woman icing period. His war injuries flared up again, and by the time he recovered, he felt it was time to move on and get back to writing his true passion. But Stevenson, him again wanted rolled to write a history of the BCS. And rolled agreed to do it because he needed the money. Now, unfortunately, in order to write it, he was sent to a remote military base at lake Ontario, Canada known as camp X. [00:06:05] Speaker A: Camp X? [00:06:05] Speaker B: Remember Camp X. I do. [00:06:07] Speaker A: Way back in our first episode, fleming. [00:06:10] Speaker B: And age of heroes. [00:06:11] Speaker A: Oh, god, let's forget about age of Heroes. [00:06:14] Speaker B: What you didn't like age of Heroes? [00:06:16] Speaker A: Neither of us did, if I recall. [00:06:18] Speaker B: All right. Anyway, so it was in the middle of nowhere when world got there, he found it was little more than a storage space for highly sensitive archived material. He got bored fast and left in September 1945 after retiring from the military. So, as everyone knows, he went on to write all these beloved children's books that traumatized children for generations and generations. He would, however, cross the spy world a couple more times. In 1967, he was hired to write the screen adaptation of You Only Live Twice. Like you said. Christian Rolls. Thought You Only Live Twice was Fleming's worst book. Did you know that? [00:06:55] Speaker A: Interest? I did not know that. Does he say why? [00:06:59] Speaker B: Well, he wanted to make major changes and the producers agreed as long as he didn't change the girl formula that we've talked about before. I guess that was the deal breaker. That was like the one thing you need to have in a James Bond movie. [00:07:11] Speaker A: So the novel of you only Live Twice is very different than the movie because it's set after on her Majesty's secret service in the novels. So it's got a more depressed Bond. [00:07:26] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:27] Speaker A: I mean, there's things that are still similar, like the character of Tiger Tanaka, who tell our listeners upon reading the money pity diaries you were know, he's mentioned, and OOH, this sounds like a great person to do a microdot on and realize he's a fictional character. [00:07:41] Speaker B: They really got me with that one. I thought for sure he was real. [00:07:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So characters and then him and the Kisi Suzuki character name at least, and then Henderson as the other contact in Japan. But the rest of the plot is super different. [00:08:00] Speaker B: So you only live twice as one where he goes to Japan and does like Japan phase. Right? [00:08:04] Speaker A: Yes. I bet Roll is involved with in the novel. [00:08:08] Speaker B: Oh, really? [00:08:10] Speaker A: It's not as mean, it's still terrible, but it's not as bad. There's no prosthetics involved in this novel. [00:08:19] Speaker B: Plus, it's one thing to read about it's, another thing to see it. [00:08:21] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:08:22] Speaker B: So anyway, so it took rolled eight weeks to write the screenplay, and he came up with the miniature helicopter battle and the spacecraft that swallows another spacecraft, among other ideas. Rolled was paid $165,000, which is the equivalent of one and a half million dollars today to writer. [00:08:40] Speaker A: That's pretty good. [00:08:41] Speaker B: Yeah, you could say that again. And he bought himself a Rolls Royce with the money. But despite all that work, despite all the fame and fortune, he didn't care much for the final product, the final script. That is not the movie, the final script. And he called it, quote, the biggest load of bullshit I've ever put my hand to. [00:08:59] Speaker A: I quite like You Only Live Twice. [00:09:02] Speaker B: But apparently a lot of other people did too. So that is Roald Dahl. If you want to know more about Roald Dahl's life, please feel free to check out the book. But that is the spy side of things. [00:09:12] Speaker A: Yeah, well, tangentially spy related. He also wrote the screenplay for Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is one of Ian Fleming's few non spy books. It is a children's book and also a kids movie. [00:09:25] Speaker B: Yeah, I seem to remember with traumatic elements as well, which makes it like. [00:09:30] Speaker A: Are traumatized by like, the rat catcher or the child. [00:09:34] Speaker B: The child catchers. Yeah. [00:09:35] Speaker A: But also just more Bond connections in there. It's produced by part of the production team for the Bond movies. And it has both Goldfinger, the actor whose name escapes me at the moment, also Q's actor Desmond Llewellyn. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Oh, nice, nice. [00:09:52] Speaker A: Well, thank you for all of that, Zach. It's really interesting to hear more about sort of what he did during the war. I mean, I feel like anyone who lived during that era has some crazy stories about them, what they did during the war, but real interesting to find that out about World Doll now. Thank you all for joining us. You can find us on social media at the Spy Fi Guys on Facebook, twitter. That's right, Twitter. Not X and Instagram, as well as our merch [email protected]. Until next time. I'm Christian. [00:10:23] Speaker B: And I'm Zach. [00:10:24] Speaker A: And we are the spy fi guys signing off. [00:10:32] Speaker C: Thank you for listening. If you enjoyed our podcast, please be sure to rate and review us on itunes. The theme music is by Jerry Fitzgerald and Big Man Joe. Media reviewed by our podcast are the intellectual property of their respective copyright holders and no infringement is intended. [00:10:46] Speaker D: This is a personal podcast. Any views, statements or opinions expressed in this podcast are personal and belong solely to the participants. They do not represent those of people, institutions, or organizations that the participants may or may not be associated with in a professional or personal capacity unless explicitly stated. Any views or opinions are not intended to malign any religion, ethnic, group, club, organization, company or individual. [00:11:11] Speaker C: You can find our podcast on social media at the Spotify Guys, on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.