The search for the real 007. (Frontline).

SIDNEY REILLY the man said to have been the inspiration for James Bond, was one of the most complex and remarkable characters in the twentieth-century history of espionage and the creator of a personal myth that still exerts a powerful grip on the imagination today. A rich and flamboyant adventurer, Reilly blazed a trail from the gentlemen's clubs of Edwardian England to the walls of the Kremlim leaving his unique mark on world events along the way.

Reilly himself told numerous stories about his supposed origins before moving to Britain in his early twenties. He claimed at ...