Taking a guess, had Fleming known about Harvey pre-Doctor No (perhaps he didn't know of him?) he might have suggested him for the part.
Harvey possessed or developed a British upper class accent. Bond knew there was something alien and un-English about himself'. However, although Harvey was one of the actors mentioned by McClory - the other being Richard Burton - an agreement was reached with EON, leaving fans to speculate that Bond's label snobbery could have been written with Harvey in mind, as indeed could one of the few physical descriptions that Fleming ever issued of his anti-hero - '.something cold and dangerous in that face. At one stage it almost seemed as though the soignée charms of the Lithuanian-born British actor Laurence Harvey, then fresh from his successes in Room at the Top and The Manchurian Candidate, would inherit the part. However, as the series progressed, and Connery relaxed into the role of Bond, the actor became indivisible from the part, which did not stop the producer Kevin McClory planning to cast another actor in his own version of Thunderball.
