Whisper is the name of a character in the Bond novel and film, Live and Let Die. The character is a burly man with a soft voice that sounds like he is whispering, hence earning himself the nickname. His true name is never revealed. In the film he is played by Earl Jolly Brown.

Earl Jolly Brown as Whisper in ‘Live and Let Die’.

In the novel, his quiet voice is attributed to a childhood bout of tuberculosis, from which one and a half of his lungs had to be surgically removed, leaving him with only half a lung with which to breathe and talk.

He is seen on a number of occasions throughout the film; when Bond travels to meet Felix Leiter in New York, when he pulls alongside Bond’s cab, he kills Bond’s chauffer by using the Poison Dart Shooting Mirror in his car, attempting to kill Bond as well by causing a car accident. Later, he is seen bringing a bottle of champagne to Bond is his hotel bungalow on the island of San Monique. Rosie Carver then alerts Bond that Whisper is not on the hotel payroll and should be viewed with caution. He appears at the end of the film in Dr Kananga’s lair.

It is unclear as to whether Whisper, like so many henchmen, actually dies at the close of the film. He is last seen sitting on a black leather couch which is inflated by Kananga shooting it with shark bullets, thus exploding the couch and when Bond escapes the platform that was being lowered into a pool of sharks, kicking Whisper into an air tight metal drug shipment capsule while trying to warn Kananga of the incident.

It is also unknown if Kananga wanted to get rid of Whisper or whether sending Whisper into the capsule was the unintended consequences of a prank, as he was chuckling when firing the shark gun, implying he may have only wanted to see Whisper’s reaction to the exploding couch. However, it is strongly suggested given Whisper’s condition that he dies from asphyxiation, as the capsule did not have much breathable oxygen, and his quiet voice did not enable him to shout loudly for help.

Whisper is arrested in the end of the novel.

See also:

• Bond henchmen