| Sir Hugo Drax | |
|---|---|
| James Bond character | |
 Michael Lonsdale as Hugo Drax | |
| First appearance | Moonraker (1955 novel) |
| Last appearance | 007 Legends (2012 video game) |
| Created by | Ian Fleming |
| Portrayed by | Michael Lonsdale |
| In-universe information | |
| Gender | Male |
| Affiliation | Self-employed Blades Club Nazi Germany (formerly; referenced in novel) Soviet Union (novel) |
| Classification | Villain |
| Henchmen |
|
Sir Hugo Drax is a fictional character created by authorIan Fleming for the 1955 James Bond novelMoonraker.[1] For the laterfilm andits novelization, Drax was greatly altered from the novel byscreenwriterChristopher Wood. In the film, Drax is portrayed by French/English actorMichael Lonsdale.[1] In both the novel and film, Drax is the mainantagonist.[2]
In the 1955 novelMoonraker, Sir Hugo Drax is an EnglishWorld War II soldier, believed to have been working inLiverpool harbour before the war, who became a post-war millionaire. He has red hair, and half of his face is badly scarred from a German attack during the war. The same incident left him withamnesia. He is 6 ft (183 cm) tall. After the war, Drax made a fortune from trading metals inTangier and was able to start up his company, Drax Metals Ltd, which specialises and has a monopoly in the production of the metal orecolumbite. Drax is also the backer of the Moonrakermissile project being built to defend the United Kingdom against itsCold War enemies. Alloys made from columbite have superior temperature resistance over conventional metals, allowing the Moonraker to burn hotter fuels in its engines and thus greatly increase its range.
The novel reveals that Drax was born in Germany asGrafHugo von der Drache. Because his mother was English, Von der Drache was educated in England until the age of 12. Afterwards he moved toBerlin and laterLeipzig, where he continued and finished his education. After graduating, he joined theNazi Party and entered theWehrmacht as a soldier in thePanzer Brigade 150. At the outset of World War II he took part in theBlitzkrieg campaigns in Belgium and France, before becoming aSkorzenyWerwolfcommando. After theArdennes offensive he stayed behindAllied lines when their forces crossed theRhine and started operating in theLow Countries with his commando group. During a mission, he dressed as a British soldier so that he couldsabotage and destroy a farmhouse holding a mixed liaison group of American and British servicemen, but he ended up at the same farm after being attacked by his ownfighter because he was wearing a British uniform. While he was still conscious, he managed to destroy his motorbike and documents. Later he was found and brought to the farm, so he was caught in the explosion and nearly killed. He was then rescued by the British and nursed back to health, faking amnesia and claiming to be a "missing soldier" by the name of Hugo Drax. After receiving his medical discharge from the British Army, he killed aJewish businessman in London, robbed him of £15,000, and escaped to Tangier to start his company.
Drax sets up the Moonraker missile project under the pretence of test-firing it into theNorth Sea. His workers are former Nazis, including most of the members of his old commando unit, and his true aim is to establish German superiority over England. To that end, he has the missile fitted with anuclear warhead (provided by theSoviets) and changes the flight plan to target London. Drax uses his knowledge of the impending disaster to play the currency exchange market, planning to make a huge profit from his ownterrorist act.James Bond, with the help ofSpecial Branch agent Gala Brand, sabotages Drax's missile launch and targets the North Sea again. Drax and his men board a Soviet submarine to escape, but travel unwittingly through the new target area and are killed when the missile strikes them.
The later novelFrom Russia, with Love reveals that Drax had been an operative of the Soviet counter-intelligence agencySMERSH.
The novel involved the idea of the "traitor within" throughout the course of the book.[3] Drax, real name Graf Hugo von der Drache, is a "megalomaniac German Nazi who masquerades as an English gentleman",[4] while his assistant, Krebs, bears the same name asAdolf Hitler'slast Chief of Staff.[5] In using a German as the novel's main enemy, "Fleming ... exploits another British cultural antipathy of the 1950s. Germans, in the wake of World War II, made another easy and obvious target for bad press."[4]Moonraker uses two dictatorships that Fleming hated – the Nazis and the Soviets – as villains: Drax is German and works for the Soviets,[6] who provide him with not only the atomic bomb, but the support and logistics to use it.[7]
Fleming used aspects of his private life to create Drax; Fleming named the character after an acquaintanceAdmiral Sir Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax.[8][9] Other elements of the plot came from Fleming's knowledge of wartime operations carried out byT-Force, a secret British Army unit formed to continue the work of30 Assault Unit, itself created by Fleming.[10]
In the 1979 film adaptationMoonraker, Hugo Drax (Michael Lonsdale) is a lavishFrench-German billionaire who owns Drax Industries, a private company which constructsSpace Shuttles forNASA. Though Drax lives inCalifornia, he resides in a fully authenticFrench chateau that was disassembled at its original site, transported to the United States, and rebuilt stone by stone. Drax also supposedly owns theEiffel Tower, but has not been able to secure a permit from the French government to export it out of the country. He is an accomplished pianist, playingFrédéric Chopin's"Raindrop" Prelude on his grand piano for his guests.
James Bond (Roger Moore) follows a trail around the world to investigate the theft of a space shuttle Drax had loaned to the UK. He begins his investigation in California at Drax Industries, and follows it toItaly, then toBrazil, then into space.
Drax reveals he seeks to destroy the entire human race except for a small group of carefully selected humans, both male and female, that would leave Earth on six shuttles and have sanctuary on a space station in orbit over Earth. Using chemical weapons created by Drax's scientists—derived from the toxin of a rare South American plant, the Black Orchid—at an installation in Italy, he would wipe out the remainder of humanity. The biological agents were to be dispersed around the Earth from a series of 50 strategically placed globes, each containing enough toxin to kill 100 million people. After a period of time, when thechemical agents had become harmless, Drax and hismaster race would return to Earth to reinhabit the planet.
Bond obtains a sample of the chemical agent at the location in Italy. It leads him to a remote part of Brazil, where he finds Drax's shuttle-launch facility in an ancient civilization's shrine.
Bond and his companion,CIA agent Dr.Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles), commandeer one of Drax's space shuttles and blast off to his orbiting space station. Bond persuades Drax's henchmanJaws (Richard Kiel) to switch allegiances by getting Drax to reveal that Jaws and his girlfriend Dolly (Blanche Ravalec) will be exterminated as "inferiors". A team of marines sent by the U.S. government invade the space station, resulting in a laser battle in which Drax's "master race" are all killed. Bond then corners Drax in the station's airlock, shoots him with acyanide-tipped dart, and ejects him into space.
Inhis novelization of the movie, screenwriterChristopher Wood describes Drax as red-haired and with a face scarred and botched by poor plastic surgery (from a time "before he could afford the best in the world"), much as originally envisioned by Fleming. Although Drax's nationality is not specified, Bond idly wonders to himself which side he fought on during World War II.
| Status | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by Christopher Lee | Oldest living Bond villain actor Played byMichael Lonsdale June 7, 2015 – September 21, 2020 | Succeeded by Julian Glover |