Reacties op: Column: De Nederlander die bijna James Bond werd

Door: Hella Brandt

Hella Brandt — Tue, 17 Feb 2026 23:18:34 +0000

Vraag me af hoe Hans Weerdmeester over het verleden van zijn vader G. Weerdmeester dacht.

Door: Jasper Hartog

Jasper Hartog — Sat, 12 Nov 2022 13:27:15 +0000

Hi JP, thanks for you message. I checked Thunderball the other day and I don’t think it’s Hans de Vries in the white tux.

For me the big surprise came when his sister in law Helen told me his other stage name: Luke Hanson. Luke Hanson is the reason we didn’t hear anymore about Hans de Vries after the mid 70’s.

A picture from the early 80’s Helen sent me shows Hans Weerdmeester/Hans de Vries/Luke Hanson as a handsome older chap, better looking than in ‘68, an older would-be-James Bond. Saltzman and Broccoli were quite right in those days.

I need to contact Helen again for more information. She didn’t want to tell me the whole story because of his kids. It’s their turn now to talk about their father. He deserves a Wikipedia page no less 😉

Door: J.P. Young

J.P. Young — Wed, 09 Nov 2022 21:50:34 +0000

Hello from Australia. I hope you do not mind English, otherwise I can do a Google translate.

I have been interested in Hans de Vries since I first saw him as one of the finalists to play 007 in the Life magazine feature on OHMSS. I thought then that he looked like Jerry Lewis in the photo of all five together!

Over the years I became a major Bond fanatic and noticed Hans in Harry Saltzman’s ‘Billion Dollar Brain’, and as you said in Sean Connery’s ‘Shalako’ which also used the planned leading lady, Brigitte Bardot, and the Bond cinematographer Ted Moore and stunt arranger Bob Simmons. A Bond fan club magazine on ‘You Only Live Twice’ had a still of him as a control room technician. By chance, yesterday I saw YOLT on the big screen but didn’t see that image (I read the original cut of YOLT was 3 hours, Peter Hunt was brought back in to edit it) and only saw him in earphones. I wondered also that he had the Harry Saltzman connection, whether Hans was the man in the white dinner jacket who pushes his way between Bond and Felix Leiter when the latter tells the former that Paula has been kidnapped. Why would anyone be allowed to push in to two stars in an important bit of dialogue? Did he win the Sugar Puffs James Bond contest or was he a protegee of Harry Saltzman? Some years ago I thought I found a Hans de Vries photographer in the Netherlands and sent an email done in Google translate to see if it was him bur received no reply. Thank you for your work that has been an answer to a mystery I have long sought, but I do wonder if that was him in ‘Thunderball’?