Francisco Scaramanga

Novel biography[edit]

Francisco Scaramanga, of Spanish (Catalonia) origin, became a trick shot while a youngster, and he performed in a circus owned by his father Enrico. Francisco also cared for one of the circus elephants, which he stated was his only real friend. When the elephant went on a rampage during the circus visit to Trieste, Scaramanga witnessed a policeman kill it. The enraged boy, who was 16 at the time, retaliated by shooting the policeman through the eye. He then made his way to the United States from Naples, where he found employment as an enforcer for the Spangled Mob, an outfit that plays a role in two other Bond novels: Diamonds Are Forever (where they were the main foe of Agent 007) and Goldfinger as an accomplice to Auric Goldfinger's Operation Grandslam. He posed as a pitboy at the casino of Tiara Hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada, while in fact he was executioner of cheats and other transgressors within and outside the gang. In 1958 he was forced to emigrate from the US because of his gun duel with Ramon "The Rod" Rodriguez, his opposite from the Purple Gang of Detroit (also featured in the novel Goldfinger), in which he killed Ramon, earning $100,000. He spent some time travelling the Caribbean as a representative of Las Vegas interests in real estate and plantation dealing, later switching to Rafael Trujillo of the Dominican Republic and Fulgencio Batista of Cuba where he settled in 1959, in Havana. While remaining a Batista supporter, he started an undercover work for Fidel Castro's party, becoming an "enforcer" for DSS after the Cuban Revolution.


By the time Bond finally encounters him in The Man with the Golden Gun, Scaramanga works as a freelance assassin, often working for Castro's secret police, in addition to being engaged in other criminal enterprises such as drug-running into the United States in partnership with the KGB. MI6 has evaluated Scaramanga as one of the finest shots in the world, and M authorizes Bond to assassinate the gunman — if he can.


Bond catches up with Scaramanga in Jamaica, where Bond pretends to be a freelance security officer named Mark Hazard. and Scaramanga hires him to guard an upcoming meeting of gangsters. During the meeting, a Dutch-born KGB officer named Hendricks reveals Bond's identity, resulting in a shootout between Scaramanga and Bond. Bond wounds him, but before Bond can kill Scaramanaga, Scaramanga shoots Bond with a poisoned bullet from his backup weapon, a golden derringer. Bond returns fire with his .32 Walther PPK pistol, killing Scaramanga instantly; soon thereafter, a policeman finds the nearly dead Bond in time to save him.


In the novel, British intelligence also has an in-depth psychological profile of Scaramanga, which is printed in the book before the mission begins. He is 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) tall, slim and fit. He is about 35 years old and has light brown eyes. His hair is reddish in a crew-cut with long sideburns. The profile (read by M) also delves into his background and psyche. Among other things, the profile claims that Scaramanga might be a latent homosexual, since he cannot whistle—based on the popular (but unfounded) theory that a man who cannot whistle has homosexual tendencies.