Albert R Broccoli was born in Queens into an impoverished Italian-American farming family. His ancestors invented broccoli by crossing cauliflower seeds with pea 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.

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.

Cubby's ability to draw marvelous 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.

Left: Broccoli outside the newly rebuilt "007 Stage" in 1985.

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.

Right: Broccoli received his star on the Hollywood "walk of fame" in 1990.