Family behind ‘James Bond’ boasts another claim to fame: broccoli
What do James Bond and broccoli have in common? They may have been produced by the same family.
Currently, the Bond movies are produced by Barbara Broccoli and her brother Michael G. Wilson, but her father, Albert R. “Cubby” Broccoli was the first producing co-founder of the film adaptions.
Cubby was profiled about the franchise by the LA Times in 1989, and on Wednesday, writer Dana Schwartz tweeted a blurb from the interview in which the producer also claimed that the tree-like vegetable was also their creation.
“I feel like people don’t talk enough about how James Bond is controlled by the Broccoli family, of broccoli fame,” Schwartz captioned. “They’re not named after broccoli, broccoli is named after them!!!!!!!!”
“Imagine your family producing James Bond and that NOT being the most famous thing you guys have done,” she added in a follow-up tweet.
The LA Times excerpt states that Giovanni Broccoli and his brother came to Long Island from Calabria, Italy, “at the turn of the century.”
“According to researching done in Florence by Broccoli’s wife of 20 years, Dana, the brothers were descend from the Broccolis of Carrera, who first crossed two Italian vegetables, cauliflower and rabe, to produce the dark green, thick-stalked vegetable that took their name and eventually supported them in the United States,” the Times reported.
But this fact has been contested, as Schwartz pointed out. According to Merriam-Webster, the word broccoli comes from the Italian plural of broccolo, which means “the flowering crest of a cabbage.”
The Spruce Eats says that there are records of Thomas Jefferson experimenting with broccoli seeds from Italy in the late 1700s, and commercial cultivation of broccoli started all the way in the 1500s.
Still, according to the outlet, broccoli did not become popular in the United States until Southern Italian immigrants brought it over in the early 1920s.
These days, The Broccolis are in the market for a new 007, since Daniel Craig completed his fifth and final “James Bond” movie last year.
Broccoli and Wilson told Variety on Wednesday that Idris Elba could still be in the running — if he wants it.
“He’s great,” Wilson said, to which Broccoli quickly added, “We love Idris.”
“The thing is, it’s going to be a couple of years off,” Broccoli continued. “And when we cast Bond, it’s a 10-, 12-year commitment. So he’s probably thinking, ‘Do I really want that thing?’ Not everybody wants to do that. It was hard enough getting [Daniel Craig to do it].”