Timothy Dalton: Two Films, Five Years on Hold
Image: TMDBTimothy Dalton was 40 when cast in 1986, 41 when The Living Daylights opened, and 43 when Licence to Kill followed in 1989.
Those dates make his Bond career look like a quick appointment: two films in two years, then out. Behind the scenes, the goodbye took considerably longer.
Legal and business disputes stalled the series, and a third Dalton film never materialised. He formally announced his departure in 1994, when he was 48 — five years after his last film had reached cinemas.
Dalton therefore exposes a problem with the apparently straightforward question of how old an actor was "when he stopped being Bond". He was 43 at his final release, but 48 when he publicly left the job.
His service record contains fewer completed missions than years of uncertainty. Sometimes, even James Bond ends up waiting for the paperwork.
One detail matters when checking the numbers: these ages use Dalton's birth date of 21 March 1946, supported by research into his birth registration. Some older accounts give a different year. Birth-date research · The unmade third film · Departure announcement
