Sam Mendes Sam Mendes Samuel Alexander Mendes (born 1 August 1965) is an English stage and film director best known for directing the drama film "American Beauty" (1999), which earned him the Academy Award and Golden Globe Award for Best Director, the crime film "Road to Perdition" (2002), and the "James Bond" films "Skyfall" (2012) and "Spectre" (2015). He also is known for dark re-inventions of the stage musicals "Cabaret" (1994), "Oliver!" (1994), "Company" (1995), and "" (2003). He directed an original West End stage musical for the first time with "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" (2013). In 2000 Mendes was appointed
James Bond in film the Eon series, there have been three additional productions with the character of James Bond: an American television adaptation, "Casino Royale" (1954), produced by CBS; a spoof, "Casino Royale" (1967), produced by Charles K. Feldman; and a remake of "Thunderball" entitled "Never Say Never Again" (1983), produced by Jack Schwartzman, who had obtained the rights to the film from McClory. In 1954 the American CBS television network paid Ian Fleming $1,000 ($ in dollars) for the rights to turn his first novel, "Casino Royale", into a one-hour television adventure as part of the dramatic anthology series "Climax Mystery Theater", which