Thunderball (novel) "Daily Express" strip was cut short on the order of its owner, Lord Beaverbrook, after Ian Fleming signed an agreement with "The Sunday Times" to publish a short story. On screen, "Thunderball" was released in 1965 as the fourth film in the Eon Productions series, with Sean Connery as James Bond. The second adaptation, "Never Say Never Again", was released as an independent production in 1983 also starring Connery as Bond and was produced by Kevin McClory. BBC Radio 4 aired an adaptation in December 2016, directed by Martin Jarvis. It starred Toby Stephens as Bond and Tom Conti as
James Bond filmography Worrall noted that Connery "personified James Bond with such perfection that even Ian Fleming ... admitted that it was difficult imagining anyone else in the part"; academic Jeremy Black agreed and declared that "Connery made the role his own and created the Bond audience for the cinema". Black also observed that Connery gave the character a "spare, pared-down character ... [with] inner bleakness along with the style". Connery played Bond with "the right mix of cool charisma, violence and arrogance ... against which all others are judged". Raymond Benson perceived that Connery "embodies a ruggedness and an intense screen presence