On This Day in History: November 5

Spy Sidney Reilly: the inspiration for James Bond

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I was born in 1968, so Roger Moore was my James Bond. That opening scene of The Spy Who Loved Me with the ski jump off the cliff and the Union Jack parachute? Fuckin’ righteous. This is the tale of Sidney Reilly, who inspired author Ian Fleming to create Bond.

--On This Day in History, Shit Went Down: November 5, 1925--

Reilly was actually born in Russia; he died there too, and not of old age. We don’t know much of his origin story, because being a spy, he lied a lot. He was born sometime around 1874 somewhere in the Russian Empire—probably Ukraine—and fuck knows what his real name was. Maybe Sigmund Rosenblum. As a young man he was arrested for revolutionary activities and did some time then said fuck this place and found his way to Britain, probably around 1895. While there he had an affair with a married woman and helped her off her wealthy husband so he could marry her and then he had the money to become Sidney Reilly. How did he get away with the murder? He faked being the doctor who signed the death certificate proclaiming it was totes natural causes that snuffed the rich old dude with the hot young wife.

With his new rich wife in tow, he returned to Russia in 1899 and began his lengthy career as a spy for various nations. He spied on Russia for Japan, on the Boers for Britain, and on Germany for Britain leading up to World War I, being employed by the precursor to MI6. He also engaged in sabotage of American facilities and made it look like the Germans did it to help draw the U.S. into WWI. Reilly spoke seven languages and was a known thief, con artist, serial womanizer, and murderer. When he wasn’t working as a spy, he engaged in a variety of scams to increase his own wealth. Just the right kind of guy to inspire tales of James Bond. Continues below …

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In 1918 he was involved in a failed counter-revolution against Vladimir Lenin in Russia, attempting to rescue the Romanov family. Reilly narrowly escaped with his life. It was then that the famous con artist was himself conned into becoming dead. Russia was pissed that Reilly had escaped, so their spy organization created a front group that pretended to be anti-Soviet. And this fake anti-Soviet group was all hey Reilly we think you’re awesome come back to Russia and hang with us. And Britain was all don’t do that it’s not safe. And Reilly said fuck it and went and got arrested in Moscow.

Stalin himself gave the order to execute Reilly, which was carried out on November 5, 1925. He was 51 years old. A few years later media learned of his exploits and proclaimed Reilly “the greatest spy in history” and “the Ace of Spies.”

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