 Now best known as co-producer (with Harry Saltzman, until 1976) of the hugely successful Bond films, New York-born Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli began his career as assistant director at 20th Century-Fox in 1938, and had brief experience as an actors' agent.
He moved to England in 1951, where, with Irving Allen, he founded Warwick Pictures, which produced a series of genre films, including the war films The Red Beret (d. Terence Young, 1953) and Cockleshell Heroes (d. José Ferrer, 1955), exotic adventures Zarak, Safari (both d. Young, 1956) and Killers of Kilimanjaro (d. Richard Thorpe, 1959), and pop musicals Idle on Parade (d. John Gilling, 1958) and Jazzboat (d. Ken Hughes, 1959).
The mixture of sex, spoof, glamour, thuggery and snobbery made the "Bonds" a hit from the first, Dr. No (d. Young, 1962), in which Ursula Andress emerged, bikini-clad, from the surf into the hairy-chested embrace - well, a little later - of Sean Connery. Not even changing heroes could dint the box-office appeal of the Bonds, made for Broccoli and Saltzman's Eon Productions.
Brian McFarlane, Encyclopedia of British Cinema
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