<P> Well - established stars like Peter O'Toole and sporting legends like Stirling Moss took uncredited parts in the film just to be able to work with the other members of the cast . Stunt director Richard Talmadge employed Geraldine Chaplin to appear in a brief Keystone Cops insert . The film also proved to be young Anjelica Huston's first experience in the film industry as she was called upon by her father, John Huston, to cover the screen shots of Deborah Kerr's hands . The film also marks the debut of Dave Prowse, later the physical form of Darth Vader in the Star Wars series, as Frankenstein's monster, a role he would later play again in the Hammer films The Horror of Frankenstein and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell . John Le Mesurier features in the early scenes of the film as M's driver . </P> <P> In March 1955 Ian Fleming sold the film rights of his novel Casino Royale, the first book featuring the character of James Bond, to the producer Gregory Ratoff for $6,000 ($54,812 in 2017 dollars). In 1956 Ratoff set up a production company with Michael Garrison to produce a film adaptation, but wound up not finding financial backers before his death in December 1960 . After Ratoff's death, the producer Charles K. Feldman represented Ratoff's widow and obtained the Casino Royale rights . Albert R. Broccoli, who had a long time interest in adapting James Bond, offered to purchase the Casino Royale rights from Feldman, but he declined . Feldman and his friend, the director Howard Hawks, had an interest in adapting Casino Royale, considering Leigh Brackett as a writer and Cary Grant as James Bond . They eventually gave up once they saw the 1962 film Dr. No, the first Bond adaptation made by Broccoli and his partner Harry Saltzman through their company Eon Productions . </P> <P> By 1964, with Feldman having invested nearly $550,000 of his own money into pre-production of Casino Royale, he decided to try a deal with Eon Productions and its distributor United Artists . The attempt at a co-production eventually fell through as Feldman frequently argued with Broccoli and Saltzman, specially regarding the profit divisions and when the Casino Royale adaptation would start production . Feldman approached Sean Connery to play Bond, with Connery's offering to do the film for one million dollars being rejected . Feldman eventually decided to offer his project to Columbia Pictures through a script written by Ben Hecht, and the studio accepted . Given Eon's series led to a spy film craze at the time, Feldman opted to make his film a spoof of the Bond series instead of a straightforward adaptation . </P> <P> Ben Hecht's contribution to the project, if not the final result, was in fact substantial . The Oscar - winning writer was recruited by Feldman to produce a screenplay for the film and wrote several drafts, with various evolutions of the story incorporating different scenes and characters . All of his treatments were "straight" adaptations, far closer to the original source novel than the spoof which the final production became . A draft from 1957 discovered in Hecht's papers--but which does not identify the screenwriter--is a direct adaptation of the novel, albeit with the Bond character absent, instead being replaced by a poker - playing American gangster . </P>

Who did not play james bond 007 in the original casino royale