Goldeneye, also sometimes called Goldeneye: The Secret Life of Ian Fleming, is a 1989 British television film loosely based on the life of the author Ian Fleming, portrayed by Charles Dance, focusing on Fleming's life during the Second World War, his love life and the writing of James Bond, and directed by Don Boyd. The film is based on The Life of Ian Fleming (1966), a biography by John Pearson, who was Fleming's assistant in the 1950s and has access to his private papers. The film's screenwriter, Reg Gadney, also has a small part as James Bond, the American ornithologist who lent his name to Fleming's famous spy.