According to an interview on Top Gear, Fiennes was considered for the role of James Bond during the casting process, making it to the final six contenders, but was rejected by Cubby Broccoli for having "hands too big and a face like a farmer", and Roger Moore was eventually chosen. [28] Fiennes related this tale again during one of his appearances on Countdown, in which he referred also to a brief film career that included an appearance alongside Liz Fraser. [29]

Fiennes had to pull out of the Coldest Journey expedition on 25 February 2013 because of frostbite and was evacuated from Antarctica. [22] [23] Author [ edit ] Thus, with the threat of climate change more apparent than ever, what would he urge the younger generation to change as a matter of urgency? Killer Elite (2011), Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. ISBN 978-1-4447-0792-2 (previously published as The Feather Men). Amongst his many record-breaking achievements, he was the first to reach both Poles, the first to cross the Antarctic and Arctic Ocean, and the first to circumnavigate the world along its polar axis. Just for the Love of it: The First Woman to Climb Mount Everest from Both Sides (2000), Free to Decide Publishing. ISBN 978-0-620-24782-5 (by Cathy O'Dowd, foreword by Ranulph Fiennes).

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Mind over Matter: The Epic Crossing of the Antarctic Continent (1994), Delacorte Press. ISBN 978-0385312165.

Sir Ranulph Fiennes, (born March 7, 1944, Windsor, Berkshire, England), British adventurer, pioneering polar explorer, and writer, who, among his many exploits, in 1979–82 led the first north-south surface circumnavigation of the world (i.e., along a meridian). Race to the Pole: Tragedy, Heroism, and Scott's Antarctic Quest (2005), Hyperion; reprint edition. ISBN 978-0786888580. Running Beyond Limits: The Adventures of an Ultra Marathon Runner (2011), Mountain Media. ISBN 978-0-9562957-2-9 (by Andrew Murray, introduction by Ranulph Fiennes).

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Face to Face: Polar Portraits (2008), The Scott Polar Research Institute with Polarworld, ISBN 978-0-901021-07-6 (with Huw Lewis-Jones, Hugh Brody and Martin Hartley (photographer)). In the 2007 Top Gear: Polar Special the presenters travelled to the Magnetic North Pole in a Toyota Hilux. Fiennes was called in to speak with the presenters after their constant joking and horseplay during their cold weather training. As a former guest on the show who was familiar with their penchant for tomfoolery, Fiennes bluntly informed them of the grave dangers of polar expeditions, showing pictures of his own frostbite injuries and presenting what remained of his left hand. Sir Ranulph was given recognition by having his name placed before every surname in the closing credits: "Sir Ranulph Clarkson, Sir Ranulph Hammond, Sir Ranulph May".... [43] In 2000 he attempted to walk solo and unsupported to the North Pole. The expedition failed when his sleds fell through weak ice and Fiennes was forced to pull them out by hand. He sustained severe frostbite to the tips of all the fingers on his left hand, forcing him to abandon the attempt. On returning home, his surgeon insisted the necrotic fingertips be retained for several months before amputation, to allow regrowth of the remaining healthy tissue. Impatient at the pain the dying fingertips caused, Fiennes cut them off himself with an electric fretsaw, [15] just above where the blood and the soreness was. [8] [16] The north face of the Eiger has killed off 80 people but I could only do it because of that guy.” A fragile planet before, you are even more likely to get it again. The mountains that you can actually climb when you are in your 70s have to be much lower than the ones you could have climbed before. There are only three of them out of seven that I haven’t done, so it’s very annoying. I’m sure someone else will complete it soon.” Fascination with explorers

Since the 1960s Fiennes has been an expedition leader. He led expeditions up the White Nile on a hovercraft in 1969 and on Norway's Jostedalsbreen Glacier in 1970. A notable trek was the Transglobe Expedition he undertook between 1979 and 1982, when he and two fellow members of 21 SAS, Oliver Shepard and Charles R. Burton, journeyed around the world on its polar axis, using surface transport only. Nobody else has ever done so by any route before or since. [11] [12] [13]

Preparation for what came to be called the Transglobe Expedition began in 1972 and occupied much of Fiennes’s and Ginny’s time during the rest of the decade. The trekking team, led by Fiennes and including fellow Britons Charles Burton and Oliver Shepard, had a support crew of some three dozen people, including Ginny. They departed from Greenwich, England, in September 1979, attempting to stay as close as possible to the Greenwich meridian as they journeyed southward over land and water, until they reached the coast of Antarctica in January 1980. They remained there until October, when Fiennes, Burton, and Shepherd departed on snowmobiles for the South Pole, which they reached on December 15. Setting out again after a short time at the American base there, they arrived at the Scott Base on the west coast of Antarctica in mid-January 1981, having made the continental traverse in a record-setting 67 days.