Trivia / The Persuaders!

• Acting for Two: In "A Death in the Family", Roger Moore plays three different members of the Sinclair family in an homage to Kind Hearts and Coronets. Not to be left out, Tony Curtis also plays Danny's aunt at the end.
• Actor-Inspired Element:
  • Throughout the series, Danny Wilde is almost always seen wearing gloves. According to the DVD Commentary, this was a gimmick developed by Tony Curtis to make his character unusual, and therefore create some buzz for the series.
  • According to the end credits, Roger Moore designed Lord Brett Sinclair's costumes.
• Actor-Shared Background: Like his character, Tony Curtis suffered a tough childhood in the Bronx and served in the navy.
• Completely Different Title:
  • Two Bold Characters (Argentian, Chile, Mexico, Venezuela)
  • The Playboys / Amicably Yours (Belgium)
  • The Hapless Heroes (Denmark)
  • Crooks and Saints (Estonia)
  • Rascals and Saints (Finland)
  • Amicably Yours (France)
  • The Two (Germany)
  • The Rivals (Greece)
  • Two Spoons in Every Soup (Hungary)
  • Brothers in Arms (Iceland)
  • Careful About Those Two (Italy)
  • Two Dandies' Brilliant Adventures (Japan)
  • The Tricksters (Latvia)
  • The Seducers (The Netherlands)
  • Golden Boys (Norway)
  • Partners (Pakistan)
  • Brett and Danny (Romania)
  • Extra Class Amateur Detectives (Russia)
  • Rivals (Spain)
  • Snobs on the Job (Sweden)
  • Relaxed Ones (Turkey)
  • Rivals (Yugoslavia)
• Development Hell: A motion picture was announced in 2005 with Steve Coogan and Ben Stiller. In 2007 Hugh Grant and George Clooney were later announced as the stars with Stiller attached as producer. The film was slated for a December 2008 release, but was never completed.
• Directed By Castmember: Roger Moore directed two episodes.
• Fake Nationality: The likes of Patrick Troughton and Peter Vaughan made guest appearances as Frenchmen.
• Foreign Dub as Basis: Due to a massive case of Germans Love David Hasselhoff the French dub is based on the German dub which almost completely changed the original dialogue with many cases of Breaking the Fourth Wall making the series much more comedic in contrast to the original version. In fact, after watching three German episodes himself Tony Curtis wanted the German co-ordinator of the dubbing, Rainer Brandt, to write the original scripts due this success, which never happened though, since the series was not continued.
• Hostility on the Set: There is much speculation about the professional relationship between Roger Moore and Tony Curtis on- and off-set.
  • In her autobiography Second Act, Joan Collins detailed how they did not get along when she was a guest star. She cited Curtis' foul temper as the reason why the set of the "Five Miles to Midnight" episode was tense. Episode director Val Guest, in a 2005 interview to the British Film Institute, confirmed Collins's assessment of Curtis:
    Tony was on pot at the time, and I used to have to say 'Oh, go and have a smoke'm', because he always had some gripe of some kind, and, one day, we were shooting on the Croisette, in Cannes, and we'd been roped off our little thing, and there were crowds all around watching us film and everything, and Tony Curtis came down to do his scene and he was just carrying on at the wardrobe saying, 'You didn't do this, and you should have done that... and in Hollywood you would have been fired....' And dear Roger Moore walked over, took him by the lapels, looked him straight in the eyes and said, 'And to think those lips once kissed Piper Laurie'. [laughter] Well, the whole of the Croisette collapsed, the unit collapsed, and, I must say, even Tony had to laugh, but we were asked to do another... we got the award that year for the best TV series, I think it was, and they wanted to do a repeat, and I remember Roger saying, "With Tony Curtis, not on your life", and he went on to become James Bond, so he did all right.
  • In his autobiography, Still Dancing, Lew Grade notes that the actors "didn't hit it off all that well", because of different work ethics.
  • Despite third-party claims, Curtis and Moore consistently maintained they had an amicable working relationship. Moore said:
    Tony and I had a good on- and off-screen relationship, we are two very different people, but we did share a sense of humour.
  • In a 2005 interview, Curtis referred to Moore with affection and stated that he would not participate in a remake of the series without Moore.
  • Speaking of Joan Collins, Curtis got so fed up with her onset attitude that he called her a cunt. This offended her enough to halt shooting until Moore sorted things out.
• No Stunt Double:
  • Roger Moore did the opening sequence water skiing stunt.
  • Tony Curtis was forty-six at the time, but he performed all his own stunts and fight sequences.
• Real-Life Relative: Because Roger Moore deemed that no good photos exist of him as a child, the black and white boyhood picture of Brett Sinclair in the opening credits is that of his son Geoffrey Moore. His daughter Deborah played the schoolgirl in "The Long Goodbye".
• Uncredited Role:
  • David Lodge as Thompson and Michael Nightingale as a Coalition Club member in "The Time and the Place".
  • Nina Baden-Semper as an air hostess in "Overture".
  • Larry Martyn as a taxi driver in "Read and Destroy".
• Unfinished Episode: Series writer Tony Williamson's widow unearthed five un-realised storylines written for a potential second series of the show which was never made. The titles were "A Long Weekend", "A Shooting War", "A Girl Could Get Killed", "Rendezvous" and "Invitation to a Funeral".
• What Could Have Been: Roger Moore's costar could have been Glenn Ford or Rock Hudson. He hadn't worked well with Ford and felt that he and Hudson were too similar.
• Working Title: Originally, the title was going to be The Friendly Persuaders, but because that sounded to close to a Gary Cooper western (Friendly Persuasion), it was shortened.

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