After Bernard Lee's death in 1981, the producers hired actor Robert Brown to play M in Octopussy . Brown had previously played Admiral Hargreaves, flag officer of submarines, in the 1977 film, The Spy Who Loved Me . Bond scholars Steven Jay Rubin, John Cork, and Collin Stutz all consider Admiral Hargreaves would have been promoted to the role of M, rather than Brown playing a different character as M.