Forget Sean Connery, Watch James Bond Make His Real Debut on TV

Conventional wisdom has it that Sean Connery is the first actor to play James Bond onscreen, kicking off a line of succession that leads to current 007, Daniel Craig, whose latest film, Spectre, opens in theaters tonight. Before Connery registered his license to kill in the 1963 hit Dr. No, millions of viewers were introduced to Barry Nelson’s “Bond, Jimmy Bond” in a 1954 episode of the CBS anthology series Climax! The show’s producers secured the rights to adapt Ian Fleming’s just-published debut Bond novel, Casino Royale, during their first season. Barry Nelson’s Jimmy Bond engages in a baccarat battle with Peter Lorre’s Le Chiffre in 1954′s “Casino Royale” To be fair, there’s a good reason why Nelson’s Bond isn’t as immediately recognizable as Connery’s or Craig’s: for decades, nobody was able to see his version of the character.