'We hadn't cast James Bond yet, but the favorite was a fellow with black hair, so the double had black hair. 'We shot that before commenced main shooting,' director John Glen recalled in the book Nobody Does It Better.
In fact, the race to be the first of the Bond movies to make it to the screen was such that Octopussy's climactic airplane fight scene was shot before Moore had been locked in for the movie, forcing a stunt double to log some serious time at the hair salon. With rival Bond productions now set for release, however, the producers of Octopussy staged a reunion with Moore rather than riding into battle with an unproven Bond going up against Connery.
