Writer versus Architect

Goldfinger is the seventh novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series, first published in the UK by Jonathan Cape on 23 March 1959

  Like most great writers, Ian Fleming took inspiration for his fictional characters from real life.
 The name James Bond from reading a book on ornithology by a man of that name. He thought the monosyllabic name relayed a strength and directness that was ideal for the type of spy he wanted to portray. But the same cannot be said for the inspiration behind the name of the famous villain, Goldfinger.

Ian Fleming

 Fleming got the idea for the name Goldfinger when he first heard it mentioned whilst chatting over a round of golf with John Blackwell, a cousin of Erno Goldfinger’s wife, Ursula.
 Erno Goldfinger was the renowned 1930’s modernist architect who designed (among others) the Brutalist Trellick and Balfron Towers (respectively North Kensington and Poplar) and 2 Willow Road in Hampstead.
 The exceptionally tall Erno Goldfinger was by all accounts a humourless man.  A Marxist, born into a Jewish family in Hungary who took British nationality. 
 The fictional villain, Auric Goldfinger was a short, Jewish Soviet agent. He was also a foreigner who became a naturalised Brit and, like his architect namesake, lacked people skills.

Erno Goldfinger

According to The Man with the Golden Typewriter, a compilation of Ian Fleming’s letters that has just been published, Erno Goldfinger let it be known that he thought his name was being brought into disrepute by being chosen as that of a Bond arch-villain.
Whilst the exact nature of any demands he might have made are unknown, and fearing a delay in the publication of Goldfinger, the publishers thought that it worthwhile coming to some sort of arrangement with the architect. But Fleming himself was not to be bullied.
In a letter from Jamaica, Fleming told his publisher not to “stand for any nonsense from the Golden-Finger” as there were many others of the Goldfinger name in US and German telephone directories.  In the same letter he suggests inserting an erratum slip to change the name throughout to Goldprick. And Erno Goldfinger, despite his reputation for being difficult and for having huge rages, was placated relatively easily by the addition of an “all characters are fictional…” disclaimer in early editions and being sent a few complimentary copies of the book.

But perhaps the real truth is, like his choice of “James Bond”, he thought the name “Goldfinger” was just too good not to make into a character.


Source: Fleming vs. Goldfinger; what really happened when the architect took on the author