Donald “Red” Grant is a fictional character in the James Bond novel and film From Russia with Love. In both, Grant is a henchman for the villain Rosa Klebb. Red Grant is played by English actor Robert Shaw. The bleach blond Red Grant became the basis of the blond assassin/henchman archetype of the Bond films, which would later include Hans, Necros, and Stamper.

Robert Shaw as Red Grant in ‘From Russia With Love’.

Novel biography: In the novel, From Russia with Love, Red Grant is SMERSH’s Chief Executioner. He was born Donovan Grant in Ireland, to an Irish mother and is the illegitimate son of “The Mighty O’Donovan”, a German who is involved with an international circus group. Shortly after birth, his mother died and he was consequently raised by his aunt.

Red Grant becomes a killer at an early age, his urges to kill coinciding with the full moon. In the intro of the novel his wristwatch is described to show the phases of the moon. After World War II, he is called up for National Service and is posted to Berlin as a soldier with the British Army. He defects to the Soviets after being disgraced for cheating in a boxing match. Grant enjoys killing people, and the Russians train him to become their Chief Executioner where the Russians call him “Krassno Grantitsky” code name “Granit” with some American paperbacks calling him “Krassno Granitsky”.

He poses as an MI6 Agent to lull James Bond into a false sense of security. Bond then trusts him to take watch one night on the Orient Express and gives Grant his gun for protection. Grant attempts to shoot Bond with a gun hidden in the spine of a copy of War and Peace but Bond has put a cigarette case over his heart. Grant is then stabbed by Bond (who was playing dead) in the room and shot with his book gun.

Film biography: Red Grant, aka Donald Grant, works for SPECTRE and is assigned the task of assassinating James Bond to avenge the death of Dr Julius No. The pre-title sequence shows Bond and Grant searching for one another. In the end Grant kills Bond, before a mask is removed from “Bond’s” face to reveal that the whole thing was a training mission for Grant.

Grant is described as a homicidal-paranoiac maniac, who escaped from Dartmoor prison in 1960 (where he was presumably incarcerated for life for a murder conviction) and was recruited by SPECTRE in Tangier two years later, while on the run from the law. He has been intensively trained by the organisation and when not on a mission, he is resident on SPECTRE Island (location unknown). He is physically formidable as Rosa Klebb learns when she suddenly punches him in the abdomen with brass knuckles and he barely reacts to the blow. However, his finer education may be limited as well as his social skills when later in the film, Bond is surprised that he doesn’t know white wine goes with fish.

Although it is Grant’s mission to kill Bond, the early part of the film shows Grant shadowing Bond upon his arrival in Istanbul and taking on the role of Bond’s protector to ensure Bond delivers (unknowingly) the Lektor gencoding device into SPECTRE’s hands. Grant perches himself as a sniper during the Gypsy camp battle sequence to shoot one Bulgar assassin who tries to kill Bond. Later, Grant kills another enemy agent at the St Sophia Mosque in Istanbul who tries to intervene in Bond’s rendezvous with Tatiana Romanova.

Later in the film, Grant shadows Bond on the Orient Express train and murders Kerim Bey and Soviet security agent Benz to hinder Bond’s plans for escape. Later, Grant impersonates a British agent, named Captain Nash, whom he kills at the train’s stop in Zagreb to gain Bond’s trust. At dinner on board the train, “Red” Grant drugs Soviet cipher clerk Romanova by putting chloral hydrate in her wine. Grant is killed on the Orient Express after a brutal fight when Bond, with the use of Q-branch’s attaché case.

Red Grant confronts James Bond in the climax.

When Grant reveals his true identity and his plans for SPECTRE to Bond after disarming him, Bond plays his final card. Grant also shows 007 the roll of film that is the recording of Bond and Romanova making love in his Istanbul hotel, as well as a letter that SPECTRE intends for bond to have on him when he is ultimately found dead by the authorities. This letter would supposedly be from Tatiana, threatening to turn the film over to the news press unless he marries her.

Trying to stall for time, Bond asks for one last cigarette to smoke, but Grant refuses. Knowing that the assassin has taken his wallet, Bond offers to pay for the cigarette which is intriguing for Grant, who asks how could Bond pay for a cigarette, and Bond reveals that there are 50 gold sovereigns hidden in his attaché case. Grant makes his worst mistake by allowing Bond to retrieve them. Knowing how the attaché case works, Bond opens it the correct way (by turning the latches inward before opening), and retrieves the gold sovereigns. With greed in his voice, Grant asks if there are more gold sovereigns hidden in the other case (the one that he took from Nash).

As Grant puts on his black gloves, Bond tricks the SPECTRE assassin into opening the other attaché case the incorrect way which activates a tear gas cartridge which detonates whenever the briefcase is opened the incorrect way, which sprays tear gas into Grant’s face, momentarily stunning him, and giving Bond a chance to lunge at his captor. After a long and brutal fistfight between the two adversaries in the train compartment, Grant attempts to strangle Bond with the garrote wire concealed inside “Red” Grant’s ‘strangler’s wristwatch’. But Bond takes advantage of his Q-branch attaché case again by producing a hidden, flat-bladed throwing knife and stabs the surprised Grant in his left arm, and then strangles Grant with his own garotte.

Grant does not have any dialogue in the film until he meets Bond at the Zagreb train station. When posing as the late Captain Nash, Grant speaks in a polite upper class English accent that irritates Bond as Grant continually calls him “old man”. Grant’s voice strangely changes to an Irish accent after he subdues Bond, thus revealing his true identity.

Henchmen based on Red Grant:

• Hans – 6’8” – Ronald Rich – You Only Live Twice
• Peter Franks – 6’2” – Joe Robinson – Diamonds are Forever
• Erich Kriegler – 6’0”-6’4” – John Wyman – For Your Eyes Only
• Venz – 6’5” – Dolph Lundgren – >A View to a Kill
• Necros – 6’4” – Andreas Wisniewski – The Living Daylights
• Stamper – 6’7” – Götz Otto – Tomorrow Never Dies

See also:

• Bond henchmen