Boysie Oakes
Encyclopedia
Boysie Oakes is fictional secret agent
created by the British spy novelist John Gardner
in 1964 at the height of the fictional spy mania. Oakes is a richly comic character who is inadvertently taken to be a tough, pitiless man of action and is thereupon recruited into a British spy agency. He is, in actuality, a devout coward with many other character flaws who wants nothing more than to be left alone.
An example of the endearing points in these novels is the continuing appearance of monogrammed "BO" gifts from his mother - shirts, handkerchiefs, cigarette lighter, and so forth. He would never dream of NOT using them, even though he resents them.
The cowardly Oakes starred in another seven novels over the next 15 years and eventually, once again by inadvertence, becomes the head of the secret agency that has caused him to be in a constant state of terror for so long.
The first novel in the series, The Liquidator
, was made into a feature film of the same name
in 1965, starring Rod Taylor
as Boysie Oakes.
Secret Agent
Secret Agent is a British film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, loosely based on two stories in Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W. Somerset Maugham. The film starred John Gielgud, Peter Lorre, Madeleine Carroll, and Robert Young...
created by the British spy novelist John Gardner
John Gardner (thriller writer)
John Edmund Gardner was an English spy novelist, most notably for the James Bond series.-Early life:Gardner was born in Seaton Delaval, Northumberland. He graduated from St John's College, Cambridge and did postgraduate study at Oxford...
in 1964 at the height of the fictional spy mania. Oakes is a richly comic character who is inadvertently taken to be a tough, pitiless man of action and is thereupon recruited into a British spy agency. He is, in actuality, a devout coward with many other character flaws who wants nothing more than to be left alone.
An example of the endearing points in these novels is the continuing appearance of monogrammed "BO" gifts from his mother - shirts, handkerchiefs, cigarette lighter, and so forth. He would never dream of NOT using them, even though he resents them.
The cowardly Oakes starred in another seven novels over the next 15 years and eventually, once again by inadvertence, becomes the head of the secret agency that has caused him to be in a constant state of terror for so long.
The first novel in the series, The Liquidator
The Liquidator (novel)
The Liquidator was the first novel written by John Gardner and the first novel in his Boysie Oakes series.After publishing his autobiographical account of alcoholism Spin the Bottle, Gardner decided to write a novel about governments killing people...
, was made into a feature film of the same name
The Liquidator (film)
The Liquidator is a 1965 MGM film starring Rod Taylor as Brian "Boysie" Oakes, Trevor Howard as his Intelligence Chief Mostyn and Jill St. John as Mostyn's secretary Iris MacIntosh. It was based on the first of a series of Boysie Oakes novels by John Gardner, The Liquidator.-Plot:The film follows...
in 1965, starring Rod Taylor
Rod Taylor (actor)
Rodney Sturt "Rod" Taylor is an Australian-American actor of film and television.-Early life:Born on 11 January 1930 in Lidcombe, a suburb of Sydney, Taylor was the only child of William Sturt Taylor, a steel construction contractor and commercial artist, and the former Mona Thompson, a writer of...
as Boysie Oakes.
Boysie Oakes novels
- The Liquidator (1964)
- UnderstrikeUnderstrikeUnderstrike is a novel by John Gardner. It is the second novel in his Boysie Oakes series....
(1965) - Amber Nine (1966)
- Madrigal (1967)
- Founder Member (1969)
- The Airline Pirates aka Air Apparent (1970)
- Traitor's Exit (1970)
- Killer for a Song (1976)