ALISON BOSHOFF: Is Bridgerton star Rege-Jean Page taking the Roger Moore route to become James Bond?

Ever since he first stepped out as Simon Basset, the oh-so-sexy Duke of Hastings in Bridgerton in 2020, his many fans have been calling for British actor Rege-Jean Page to be the next James Bond. 

And it looks as if he has come an elegant step closer, as this week he has signed on the dotted line to appear in the Simon Templar role in a new movie based on The Saint. 

That’s the 1960s TV show which made Roger Moore famous, before he was Bond — and Moore carried the Saint’s smooth swagger over into his interpretation of Ian Fleming’s spy. 

The film, being made by Paramount, will be based loosely on Leslie Charteris’s books about a thief for hire — but a thief with a social conscience. It is said to be a post-strike ‘priority’ for the studio. 

ALISON BOSHOFF: Ever since he first stepped out as Simon Basset, the oh-so-sexy Duke of Hastings in Bridgerton in 2020, his many fans have been calling for British actor Rege-Jean Page to be the next James Bond

With Bond on a long break (Daniel Craig‘s No Time To Die came out two years ago), now could be the perfect moment for a new spy film franchise. 

Certainly, the streaming services thought so, with Amazon casting Richard Madden as a spy in its series Citadel, and Netflix using Ryan Gosling as a secret agent in movie The Gray Man. Both had mega budgets, but neither quite caught fire. 

The re-boot of The Saint is being directed by another Bond-worthy talent, Doug Liman, the man who launched the vastly successful Bourne franchise. 

Playwright and actor Kwame Kwei-Armah, artistic director of the Young Vic, is to write a new draft. 

The Saint film was previously in the works, with actor Chris Pine and British director Dexter Fletcher, but that version has been shelved. 

As for Bond’s return, the bookies currently fancy Aaron Taylor-Johnson. But Bond producer Barbara Broccoli says a decision is still a long way off . . . probably years. 

With James Bond dead at the end of the last film, they have to decide whether to start again with a prequel set in the Dr No era; recast a 007 who is not James Bond; or pursue some other possibility, perhaps ignoring what happened in No Time To Die. 

Page has signed for a new film based on The Saint, the 1960s TV show which made Roger Moore famous, before he was Bond 

Promoting her 007-inspired reality series 007: Road To A Million, Broccoli admitted they hadn’t even begun working out the reinvention and that casting would follow. 

‘I go back to GoldenEye, when everyone was saying: ‘The cold war is over, the Wall is over, Bond is dead, no need for Bond, the whole world’s at peace and now there’s no villains’, and boy was that wrong! 

‘These movies reflect the time they’re in and there’s a big, big road ahead, reinventing it for the next chapter — and we haven’t even begun with that.’

Sweet success for woman who brought Wonka’s treats to life

Chocolatier Gabriella Cugno looks certain to get an enormous boost as (whisper it) she’s the real Wonka . . . the woman who made the chocolates for the blockbuster starring Timothée Chalamet as Roald Dahl’s eccentric inventor.

Up to now, London-based Cugno has worked at high-end restaurants and her advent calendar of chocolates costs £55.

She hand-made and tempered every single chocolate for the film, including delights such as ‘hair repair eclairs’ (200 of them) and 900 Hoverchocs. She also made edible purple and orange mushrooms, bees, pears, and tree bark. Director Paul King said: ‘Everything that is eaten in the movie is not only edible, but delicious. I promise!

Chocolatier Gabriella Cugno looks certain to get an enormous boost as (whisper it) she’s the real Wonka . . . the woman who made the chocolates for the blockbuster starring Timothée Chalamet as Roald Dahl’s eccentric inventor

‘One day I was remembering the bit where Gene Wilder [as Willy Wonka in the 1971 film] eats the teacup. I was like: “Oh, if only I’d thought of this, we could have a chocolate cup that Willy could make.”

‘And Gabriella said: “Oh, I can do that.” ’

Wonka, which tells the origin story of Roald Dahl’s beloved character, is out in cinemas on December 8.

Nic’s having a good time playing the bad wife

NICOLE KIDMAN, luminously wronged in the wildly enjoyable (if improbable) mini-series The Undoing, seems to have entered a ‘bad wife’ phase of her professional career.

Earlier this year she completed Holland, Michigan, a ‘Hitchcockian’ melodrama in which she is having an affair — then discovers far worse secrets about her husband, played by Matthew Macfadyen.

Nicole Kidman is preparing to shoot a thriller called Babygirl in which she is a boss who has a scandalous affair with a 21-year-old intern

Now she is preparing to shoot another domestic noir film, this time an erotic thriller called Babygirl in which she is a boss who has a scandalous affair with a 21-year-old intern.

Antonio Banderas is her luckless husband and British newcomer Harris Dickinson — excellent in Triangle Of Sadness and low-budget charmer Scrapper — is the boy she dallies with. The picture, for indie juggernaut A24, will shoot in New York next month. Dickinson grew up in Walthamstow, East London, and worked in a Hollister store before embarking on his acting career.

Meanwhile, Kidman has also made The Perfect Couple, in which she plays the famous detective-novelist mother of the groom — whose wedding is disrupted by the discovery of a murder. That’s a six-part TV show for Netflix and also stars Bono’s daughter Eve Hewson. No spoilers as to whether she’s a baddie in this one, too, but let’s just say the finger of suspicion points entertainingly around the whole cast.

When Bowie wanted to be Tom Jones… but his record label said no

There’s only one David Bowie – but it can be revealed that when he was starting out, he wanted to be called… Tom Jones.

When he was just 17, Bowie was playing with a band called The King Bees, and he used the name ‘Tom Jones’ on their single Liza Jane (B side: Louie Go Home), released in the summer of ’64. It was a nod to the film Tom Jones, which came out the previous year, and also neatly incorporated his real last name, Jones.

There was only one problem. Another up-and-coming singer, on the same label, had changed his name from Tom Woodward to Tom Jones. A Welshman. And he was also causing a bit of a stir.

David Bowie used the name ‘Tom Jones’ while playing with a band called the King Bees

So Bowie changed his name — again — to Davie Jones. That was printed on the record which went to most shops, but not the one owned by an old friend of his Mick Wakelin.

Bass player Wakelin, 82, said: ‘It was a total set of bizarre circumstances. Dave and I were both managed by Dick James, although I was in a band called The Naturals and he was in The King Bees.

‘We’d have beers together and he was already a bit of an extrovert, and you could see he was a good musician on the saxophone. Dave did tell me he was using a stage name Tom Jones — there was a film called Tom Jones out which was about a young rebel, which is why I think he liked it.

‘I was given a disc of their recording with his name on it as “Tom Jones”. He then had to change it, because of the clash with the other Tom Jones.’ Alas, Davie Jones didn’t last long either, as The Monkees emerged in 1966 — fronted by English actor and singer . . . Davy Jones.

Bowie had his first hit with Space Oddity in 1969.

Wakelin said: ‘I was reminiscing with my son Gavin and looking through some old stuff and he said: “This could be worth a few bob”.’

The record was eventually sold to an unnamed buyer for £6,250. Mark Hochman, of Propstore, who auctioned it, said: ‘The Welsh Tom Jones at that stage had only done one single that hadn’t charted. But a year later he did Thunderball for the James Bond film, so he must have been highly thought of.

‘And Decca probably saw a brighter future for him than for Bowie’s Tom Jones.’

Kenwright’s last project takes off, thanks to Travolta

John Travolta, whose love of planes is well known, is playing a pilot in a moving short drama based on a Frederick Forsyth story, The Shepherd.

Set in the 1950s, a pilot flying solo to Norfolk suffers instrument failure in the fog and is helped to safety by a ‘shepherd’ — a mysterious older pilot.

Travolta (right) originally optioned the book and wanted to star as the young flyer, but decades passed and he’s come on board as the older man.

John Travolta, whose love of planes is well known, is playing a pilot in a moving short drama based on a Frederick Forsyth story, The Shepherd

Director Iain Softley said: ‘He’s a proper aviation buff. The other thing that I think is wonderful is that it’s an older John Travolta and I think he looks great. He’s handsome and elegant and dignified.’

Softley said Forsyth himself thought the part of the ‘Shepherd’ needed to be played by somebody ‘iconic’. ‘He said he’d always felt it needed somebody who had that kind of iconic status, if it was ever to hit the screen,’ the director said. The film, which streams from December 1 on Disney+, is impresario Bill Kenwright’s last project. He died on October 23.

He’d been working on a musical version of It’s A Wonderful Life, with Sir Paul McCartney writing the songs, but it’s not clear whether that will be completed.

Makers of Slow Horses, the acclaimed Apple TV+ series, say the spy drama is part Bond . . . part workplace comedy.

Certainly it’s proved a huge hit, thanks to Gary Oldman’s mesmerisingly funny turn as slobby spymaster Jackson Lamb (pictured). Oldman says: ‘The cocktail of the dark humour and the dirt-under-the-fingernails reality of it, coupled with the spy genre that we’re familiar with and love — the Bond films and The Bourne Identity — is great for an actor.

‘It’s such an interesting way of looking at these people. Sean Connery never said: “Hang on a second, I need to have a whiz!”’

Producer Saul Metzstein adds: ‘It’s obviously not just a workplace comedy, but that’s the real spine. I think the secret to a successful series is the characters . . . And the characters in Mick’s [author Mick Herron] books are just great.’

The show opens with an amazing all-action bang and a lot of peril for a beloved character from Slough House.

No spoilers here, though. It streams from November 29.

Diana: The Musical closed after only 33 performances on Broadway, following a critical spanking, but omens for its London transfer look extremely positive.

The show, which stars Denise Welch as The Queen, is on for one night only — Monday, December 4 — at the Eventim Apollo. The X (formerly Twitter) feed of the Apollo says: ‘Don’t miss out. Limited tickets remaining.’ A spokesman says that 93 per cent have in fact now gone.

Pity Natalie Portman, out promoting her (brilliant) turn in film May December while her marriage is in crisis, after French husband Benjamin Millepied was accused of an affair. 

She’s been minus her wedding ring, but saying not a word about her troubles. And she’s been joined in the no-ring club by Annette Bening, who is plugging her performance as swimmer Diana Nyad in Nyad. 

The actress, 65, has been wed to Warren Beatty since 1992. Bening’s reps did not respond to requests for comment. 

Shockwaves continue to convulse the fashion world after the queen of taste, Anna Wintour, put Amazon’s Jeff Bezos in Vogue, posing alongside his new fiancée Lauren Sanchez (both crammed into the front seat of a pickup truck) and wearing a cowboy hat. What was she thinking? 

Can it be a mere coincidence that Amazon Fashion has sponsored Wintour’s pet project, The Met Gala? Bezos has also poured money into the Council Of Fashion Designers of America/Vogue Fashion Fund and the CFDA Awards. 

Eleanor Tomlinson says she’s sad that her sci-fi thriller Intergalactic has been canned by Sky.

Poldark star Eleanor, who debuts in the six-part thriller The Couple Next Door on Channel 4 next Monday and Tuesday, said: ‘Unfortunately the show was cancelled after a series. But it was fun to do and, because I wasn’t wearing a corset, I could eat what I liked at lunch.’

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