AUTOGRAPHED “SAINT” POSTER RECALLS OCTOBER 4th 1962 DEBUT OF BRITISH SPY SERIES

Before Roger Moore was James Bond, he was Simon Templar.

It was exactly 63 years ago this week that the ITV thriller series “THE SAINT” debuted on British television. Based on author Leslie Charteris’ popular mystery novels—first published in 1928 and continuing through more than 100 stories that led to an RKO film series and a six-year NBC radio drama—the 1962 TV version starred Moore in the role of the dashing, globe-trotting modern-day Robin Hood, Simon Templar. The show was a seven-season hit in the UK, also finding success in the U.S. where it aired on NBC from 1966-69.

A one-of-a-kind poster featuring artwork of the famous “Saint” stick-figure—which dates back to Charteris’s novels of the 1920s—was signed in England by the cast and crew of the Moore series. The framed piece, which has long been a part of the SPY-Fi Archives, is among the many hundreds of artifacts that appear in its traveling exhibit.

Additional Archives items representing “The Saint” include a rare 1960s-era “Saint” Bubble Gum packet and the Corgi toy model of Templar’s Volvo P1800, as well as a 16mm print of the Moore series’ pilot episode, “The Talented Husband,” which was the show’s debut episode that aired in England on October 4th, 1962.

A “Saint” stick-figure pin from the 1997 motion picture “The Saint,” starring Val Kilmer and Elisabeth Shue, and material from the 1979 “Return of the Saint” featuring Ian Ogilvy as Templar are also housed in the SPY-Fi collection.