Dana, nee Natol, was Italian American/ Irish American, and was the second wife
(for 37 years), and widow of Cubby "James Bond" Broccoli.

Cubby had been born into an impoverished family of Italian immigrants in Queens, (son of an Italian-American bricklayer); descended, apparently, from farmers who had invented broccoli by crossing a cauliflower and a pea.

Cubby was a keen gambler, had had a sketchy career, worked as a teenager in a pharmacy, worked as a vegetable packer, coffin polisher, beauty salesman before
a visit to his cousin in Los Angeles, Pat de Cicco, a film agent, convinced him that film would be his destiny.

But it was necessary for him to survive and he returned to New York, where one night  he was given a lift by his old friend, the millionaire racehorse owner Bob Howard, who drove him to the racecourse, and Albert Broccoli won enough money gambling to move to LA.

Cubby started modestly, getting a job as a tea boy at Twentieth Century Fox.
There, Cubby became friends with the up-and-coming mogul, Howard Hughes, and Cubby joined the crew on The Outlaw, a production Hughes was financing. After serving in the navy during the war, Cubby returned to films.

He teamed up with director Irving Allen, and represented Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. Charles K Feldman and Pat both encouraged Cubby towards producing, and so he teamed up with Irving Allen to make three successful films funded by the English government.

In 1957 Cubby read and produced Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love, and eventually Cubby teamed up with Harry Saltzman, who owned the film rights to make the Bond films, with whom he made the first 9, before going on alone.
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OBITUARIES

DANA BROCCOLI, 82: PRODUCER OWNED FILM RIGHTS TO "007" NOVELS

Los Angeles Times
By Dennis McLellan
Times Staff Writer
March 4, 2004

Dana Broccoli, the widow of movie producer Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli and the president of the company that owns the film rights to Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, has died. She was 82.

Broccoli, a novelist and theatrical producer, died of cancer Sunday at her home in Beverly Hills.

Danjaq, the film company that Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman founded in 1961, bought the film rights not only to Fleming's Bond novels but to his whimsical novel "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang," which became a 1968 movie starring Dick Van Dyke.

Dana Broccoli became president of the Los Angeles-based Danjaq, which produces the Bond films and co-owns them with MGM, after her husband died in 1996.

During her tenure as president, three Bond films starring Pierce Brosnan as the dashing spy have been released: "Tomorrow Never Dies," "The World Is Not Enough" and "Die Another Day."

The Bond films, now numbering 20, are the longest-running movie series of all time.

Dana Broccoli also was the creative force behind turning "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" into a musical, for which she served as lead producer. The musical opened in London's West End in 2002 and is still running. It is scheduled to open on Broadway in spring 2005.

In a 1978 interview with The Times, she described her role as "primarily a wife and a mother." But she also was known for her charity work, for being a hostess par excellence and for being "a sounding board for my husband's ideas. Like most wives, I've been a partner."

When Cubby Broccoli was searching for the actor to play Bond, he attended a screening of the Walt Disney film "Darby O'Gill and the Little People." He was impressed with the young Scot actor, Sean Connery, who played the love interest and who had a victorious fistfight with a village bully at the climax of the film.

Broccoli felt he had found the ideal man's man to play Bond, but he had one reservation.

"He phoned me and asked, 'Can you come here? I think I've found the guy, but I don't know if he has sex appeal,' " Dana Broccoli told The Times. "I went and watched [the film], and I said, 'He's fantastic.' "

Born Dana Natol in New York City in 1922, she attended Cecil Clovelly's Academy of Dramatic Arts at Carnegie Hall, where she met her first husband, Lewis Wilson, with whom she had a son, Michael.

After World War II, she and her husband joined the Pasadena Playhouse. After they divorced, she concentrated on her writing.

She met Cubby Broccoli when she brought him an idea for a movie. "He never bought the story, but six weeks later, we were married," she told The Times in 1978. Soon after their 1959 marriage, they moved to London.

Dana Broccoli wrote two novels, "Scenario for Murder" and "Florinda." The latter was adapted as a musical, "La Cava," for which she wrote the book. It opened in London's West End in 2000.

She is survived by her children, Michael Wilson, Tony Broccoli, Tina Broccoli and Barbara Broccoli; and five grandchildren.

A funeral will be held at 12:30 p.m. today in Church of the Hills at Forest Lawn, 6300 Forest Lawn Drive, in Los Angeles.

Dana Broccoli, 82; Producer Owned Film Rights to 007 Novels
http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/
la-me-broccoli4mar04,1,2936749.story?coll=la-news-obituaries

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Albert R "Cubby" Broccoli

Albert R Broccoli was born in Queens into an impoverished Italian-American farming family. His ancestors invented broccoli by crossing cauliflower seeds with pee seeds, but Albert's legacy would have a greater impact on people's lives.

Few would have predicted that the boy who sold vegetables in the streets of Manhattan would go on to sell more films, videos and tickets than anyone else since the beginning of cinema.

...Cubby the teenager worked in a pharmacy and then a coffin-maker, but a trip to his cousin in Los Angeles, Pat de Cicco, gave Cubby the ambition of stardom. Pat was a film agent, and introduced Cubby to the likes of Cary Grant. Cubby felt film would be his destiny.

But for the time being day-to-day survival was more important, as Cubby struggled to live off his wages as a beauty salesman. One night changed everything. Cubby was walking the New York streets when he was given a lift by his old friend, the millionaire racehorse owner Bob Howard. Howard drove him to the racecourse, and Albert Broccoli won enough money gambling to move to LA

There, Cubby became friends with the up-and-coming mogul, Howard Hughes, and Cubby joined the crew on The Outlaw, a production Hughes was financing. After serving in the navy during the war, Cubby returned to films.

He teamed up with director Irving Allen, and represented Lana Turner and Ava Gardner. Charles K Feldman and Pat both encouraged Cubby towards producing, and so he teamed up with Irving Allen to make three successful films funded by the English government

But when Warwick Films broke up, it was back to square one for Cubby. In 1957 he had read and loved Ian Fleming's From Russia With Love, and eventually Cubby teamed up with Harry Saltzman, who owned the film rights, to make the Bond films.
They only met by chance, after Wolf Mankowitz had told Cubby about Harry's film rights.

For 9 Bond films, Cubby and Harry Saltzman worked together, but with the relationship strained Harry left, and Cubby went on alone, continuing the franchise's unrivalled consistent success.

Cubby's ability to draw marvellous talent such as Ken Adam, Bob Simmons and Terence Young stood him in good stead, but it was Cubby's wife, Dana, who first spotted Sean Connery.

Cubby knew at once that he was the man, and it was Cubby's brilliant reading of the cinema audiences that was so important. He and Harry knew exactly what they, and the public, wanted from the Bond films, and invariably they got it.

In 1982 Cubby's achievement was recognised when the Academy awarded him the Irving G Thalberg Award.

Cubby's commitment to making films in Britain was another key reason for the Bonds' success, and Pinewood Studio's huge sound stage is now renamed the Albert R Broccoli 007 Stage. But even after Cubby quietly passed away on a summer evening in June 1996, his legacy lives on. The titles of every Bond film will open with 'Albert R Broccoli presents...'. And presenting films that made people happy was what Cubby loved.

But above all, Cubby was a family man. His relationship with Dana was massively important to him, and he has said that his whole career was driven by the desire to lift his mother out of poverty.

Cubby first met Dana when he was working on a farm selling Christmas Trees, and fate brought them together again 14 years later, when they were engaged within five weeks.

If the world will remember Cubby for the Bond films, his friends will remember him as an irrepressible optimist, and a caring man who was adored by all who were lucky enough to know him.

The National Museum of Photography, Film & Television - Cinemas - Cubby Broccoli Cinema http://www.nmpft.org.uk/guide/cinemas/broccoli.asp