"Nymphalis polychloris," the species of butterfly that James Bond detects at M's home, is a fictional taxon.
Ilse Steppat's only ever English language role was as Irma Bunt in this movie. She was not able to enjoy her new success. She died of a heart attack less than a week after the release of this film. The character of Irma Bunt was intended for a time to return in the next James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever. But because of her passing, the character did not return.
Sean Connery was offered a then very large salary of $1 million to make this film but declined.
George A. Cooper is often wrongly credited with being in this film.
Gabriele Ferzetti's voice was dubbed by David de Keyser, who would later appear in the next Bond film, Diamonds Are Forever.
Joanna Lumley makes one of her first screen appearances in this movie. Unlike other "Avengers" actors and actresses (Patrick Macnee, Diana Rigg, Honor Blackman), she is the only one to have appeared in a Bond movie *before* starring in The Avengers. Despite having a very small part as one of Blofeld's girls, she spent two months on the production, dubbing the voices of a whole line up of international beauties in German, Chinese and Norwegian accents, in addition to teaching many of the actresses who played Blofeld's patients how to crochet, which some of them can be seen doing on film. With time, some of the women preferred crocheting garments over attending parties for the cast. Joanna Lumley has also read an abridged version of the Ian Fleming novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service on BBC Radio 4.
George Lazenby also bears the distinction of being the only 007 actor who was born and raised outside the United Kingdom. He's from Australia. (Pierce Brosnan was born in Ireland but moved to the UK when fairly young.)
George Lazenby wanted to do most of his own stunts but the studio wouldn't allow him. During the shooting of one of the stunt scenes, Lazenby actually broke his arm, thereby delaying the filming of many of his later scenes. When Bond is taken to Blofeld's lab at Piz Gloria, Lazenby's broken arm in its cast is hidden by his coat which was draped over his arm. Blofeld's guard removes it from him as Lazenby was unable to do so. The guard removing the jacket was played by Yuri Borionko who ironically had had his nose broken by Lazenby in the screen test fight scene that the actor had done to land the part.
George Lazenby was previously a car salesman with a part time job as a male model. He was also well-known in Britain as "The Big Fry man," after the chocolate bar commercials he starred in, carrying an outsize bar on his hunky shoulder.
Peter R. Hunt originally wanted to direct You Only Live Twice but when that assignment was given to Lewis Gilbert, he walked off the series and went on a round the world trip. Ironically he was in Tokyo when he bumped into Albert R. Broccoli and Gilbert who were prepping "You Only Live Twice". Broccoli asked Hunt to direct the second unit on that film with the promise of directing the next entry in the series.
George Baker provides the voice of Bond when 007 is pretending to be Sir Hilary Bray.
Ian Fleming wrote the James Bond novel "On Her Majesty's Secret Service" while Dr. No was being filmed. Fleming included a mention by name of Ursula Andress in the book. The title was shared by a rare British nautical novel of the 19th Century which was discovered by Fleming's friend Sir John Nicholas Henderson (aka Nicko Henderson) at a Portbello Road book stall in London. In the book's sequel You Only Live Twice, Fleming named the character Dikko Henderson after Nicko Henderson.
Willy Bogner performed some spectacular skiing feats for the filming of chase sequences for this movie. These included skiing backwards downhill with a hand-held camera, sometimes placing it between his legs and being towed behind a bobsleigh along the bobsled course.
A double was used for Diana Rigg at the ice rink as the actress did not know how to skate.
A Rolex worn by George Lazenby drew a bid of $40,373 at Christie's in London in 2003.
A scene showing Bond murdering an enemy agent who is following him was shot, but left incomplete as George Lazenby was injured and Peter R. Hunt deemed the scene extraneous to the thrust of the plot.
A tagline on an unused piece of poster artwork read: The New Bond. 007 and Bride.
Actors considered for the part of Tracy Draco included Brigitte Bardot and Catherine Deneuve. Reportedly, Bardot was the first choice of director Peter R. Hunt but she ironically decided to star opposite the former James Bond Sean Connery in Shalako. Diana Rigg was finally chosen partly because of her appearance as Emma Peel in British TV's spy series The Avengers.
Actors considered for the role of Bond included: Adam West, Bob Campbell, Anthony Rogers, Hans De Vries, Jeremy Brett, John Richardson, and Roy Thinnes.
As Bond passes a janitor in Draco's headquarters, the man can be heard whistling the Goldfinger theme.