Hollywood Memorial

Not the vegetable, but the motion picture producer best known for producing James Bond films. Broccoli married three times. In 1940, at the age of 31, he married actress Gloria Blondell (the younger sister of Joan Blondell); they later divorced amicably in 1945 without having had children. In 1951, he married Nedra Clark, and the couple was told they had fertility problems and would never have children. They adopted a son Tony Broccoli, after which Nedra became pregnant. She died in 1958, soon after giving birth to their daughter, Tina Broccoli-Brewster, who today produces films under the name Tina Banta. At the time of Nedra’s illness, while nursing her in America, Cubby became convinced that Bond would make a good movie series, and set up a meeting between Ian Fleming and his partner in London. In the very late 1950s, Broccoli married actress and novelist Dana Wilson (née Dana Natol). They had a daughter together, Barbara Broccoli, and Cubby became a mentor to teenage son, Michael G. Wilson. Broccoli insisted on keeping his family close to him when possible. Consequently the children grew up around the Bond film sets, and his wife’s influence on various production decisions is alluded to in many informal accounts. Michael Wilson made uncredited cameo appearances in Bond films from his teens onward, and in adulthood worked his way up through the production company to co-write and co-produce. Barbara Broccoli, in her turn, served in several capacities under her father’s tutelage from the 1980s on. Wilson and Barbara Broccoli have co-produced the films since the elder Broccoli’s death. In his own large crypt in Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills.