The ORIGINAL Black Panther

Art by  Paul Gustavson

from   Stars and Stripes Comics #3 (July 1941)

007 Girls, part 4

SInce a red headed evil henchwoman worked so well in THUNDERBALL, I guess the casting people of the next 007 film, 1967's YOU ONLY LIVE TWICE, thought it'd work again. But Karin Dor (born February 22, 1938, Wiesbaden, Germany) wasn't a very good actress, at least in this writer's opinion, as well as most 007 fans. Her character, Hilda Brandt, gets eaten by piranha after she tortures Bond.

Karin Dor

Mie Hama

Akiko Wakabayashi  portrayed Aki, who goes into a fake marriage with Bond to help the mission, but is soon killed by ninjas.

Mie Hama (born 1943) and Akiko Wakabayashi (1941) were both veterens of the GODZILLA films. Mie was cast as Japanese secret agent Kissy Suzuki. Strangely, her name is never spoken in the film. Also in the odd column is the fact that this is the only 007 film in which James Bond doesn't drive a car at any point in the movie. But he IS driven by Mie in one of the rarest of 007 sports carts, the Toyota 2000 GT.

The Toyota 2000GT was never produced as a convertible. It was customised in the film because Connery couldn't fit in the coupe.

McGinnis painting for film's poster

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2002's DIE ANOTHER DAY was the 20th "Official" Bond film, 21st if you count NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN and 22nd if including the spoof "CASINO ROYAL" from 1967.

This was Pierce Brosnan's fourth and final fling as Bond. The film was rather good, but we're not here to debate that..we're here to check out the Bond Girls.

Halle Berry as CIA operative is unforgettable in a role that they have tried before, but it just doesn't work: Female Spy The (Near) Equal of James Bond. If you want that kind of stuff, I direct you to MR AND MRS SMITH.

Madonna sang the theme song for DIE ANOTHER DAY and had a larger than cameo role (although her action scenes were done by stuntwoman Karen Sheppard). Although she had no romantic tryst with Bond, I'll  put her character Verity as a minor Bond girl.

On Madonna's right is Rosamund Pike playing Miranda Frost. She sexes James, turns out to be a traitor and is killed by Halle Berry in the finale.

Pike was born in London in 1979.She plays the part of Kate Sumner in the 2011 Bond-spoof film Johnny English Reborn, playing a psychologist and English's love interest.

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Licence to Kill, released in 1989, is the sixteenth entry in the Eon Productions James Bond series and the first one not to use the title of an Ian Fleming novel. While it was a very good film, it was somewhat lacking in the dishy femme department.

Brooklyn born Talisa Soto , born in 1967, played Lupe Lamora, the baddie's terrorised girlfriend.  Talisa went on to star in such dramatic classics as MORTAL KOMBAT, SPY HARD, and VAMPIRELLA.

The Main Bond Babe in this film was played by Carey Lowell (born 1961), another attempt at a "female co-spy" that woefully failed.

007 Girls, part 3

THUNDERBALL, released in 1965, was the fourth James Bond film and offered no less than four ladies for our BEST 007 GIRL contest.

Beswick with Sean Connery

    Making her second of two small yet important roles in the series, Martine Beswick portrays Paula Capan,  007's assistant in Jamaica. She is killed by the bad guys after a couple of scenes.

  Martine also a part in FROM RUSSIA WITH LOVE as a gypsy girl. She was born in 1941 in Jamaica and went on to appear in films such as ONE MILLION YEARS BC and PREHISTORIC WOMEN.

  Another minor Bond girl, one of 3 he beds this time out, is Patricia Fearing, played by Molly Peters. This was Peters' largest film role. She was born in 1942 and was a model before her appearance as a physical therapist at the clinic Bond is sent to for some rehab at the beginning of the film.

Molly Peters

Getting far more screen time as one of the best evil henchmenwomen of the franchise was Fiona Volpe, as played by Italian redhead  Luciana Paluzzi. She was born in 1937 and was a staple in Italian action films of the 60s. She was memorable in 1968's THE GREEN SLIME as the love interest of Robert Horton and Richard Jakael on a doomed space station.

Paluzzi as Fiona

She also appeared in the pilot episode of THE MAN FROM U.N.C.L.E. previous to her role in THUNDERBALL in which she  gets two of the best scenes in the whole 007 mythos. In the first, after they make love and she betrays him to her goons, Bomd taunts her with his famous exchange:

James Bond: My dear girl, don't flatter yourself. What I did this evening was for Queen and country. You don't think it gave me any pleasure, do you? 

Fiona: But of course, I forgot your ego, Mr. Bond. James Bond, the one where he has to make love to a woman, and she starts to hear heavenly choirs singing. She repents, and turns to the side of right and virtue... 

[she steps on Bond's foot] 

Fiona: ... but not this one! 

A few minutes later, then, the famous Death of Fiona scene in which 007 uses her to block a bullet shot by one of her henchmen

Now we come to one of the better 007 Babes, French actress Claudine Auger as Domino. Born in 1941, she was a runner up for the 1958 Miss World title. She appeared in many European films after her stint with Bond. The one piece swimsuit she wore in that film was most edgy:

The role of Domino was originally to be an Italian woman: Dominetta Petacchi. Auger impressed the producers so much that they re-wrote the part to that of a French woman to better suit Auger. Although she took lessons to perfect her English, her voice was eventually dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl 

007 Girls, Part 2

DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER was released in December, 1971 and was the last "official" Bond film to star Sean Connery (he'd return   13 years later for "NEVER SAY NEVER AGAIN").

This was the first 007 film I saw in a movie theater, and since I was in my early teens, I thought that hot pants and tube tops were the zenith of female fashion (and really, why did they mess with success? sigh.). Therefore Bond Girl Jill St John really only had to stand there and she'd rack up votes for Best Bond Girl. She's my friend THJ's favorite , which started this whole debate. (I suspect he is thinking of Susan St James, whom he used to have an unhealthy thing for.)
 Her birth names is Jill Arlyn Oppenheim and she was 30 when she co-starred with Connery as Tiffany Case. With and IQ of 162 she was, as THJ points out, smart enough to stay off her husband Robert Wagner's boat.

 

Also in this film is  (very) Minor Bond Girl Lana Wood, who just couldn't get out from her sister Natalie's shadow. Most of her scenes were cut, and what remains aren't very memorable. Her character, Plenty O'Toole, is murdered by the bad guys, otherwise she'd just be classified as Eye Candy.

 

 
 

 

From Russia with Love is, along with On Her Majesty's Secret Service, one of the few James Bond films that actually follow the book it was titled after fairly closely. As such, it's a better book than movie, although purists like it. Twenty year old Italian actress Daniela Bianchi played the part of the defecting Russian cipher clerk who Bond had to smuggle out of the Soviet Union in the 1963 film.

 

Minor Bond girls this time out include Eunice Gayson making her second and last appearance as Sylvia Trench and Jamacian Martine Beswick, who would also have a small part in THUNDERBALL. She appeared in numerous B movies in the 60s and 70s, and in the 80s capped her career, such that it was, with guest shots on a number of American TV shows such as Falcon Crest, Hammer, & Hart To Hart.

Martine Beswick

007 Girls, part 1

My best bud THJ and I were having a heated discussion about the merits of the various 007 girls. Before it got to fisticuffs, we decided we needed to have more information. I seflessly volunteered to do the back-breaking work of research on this weighty subject.

We needed to set some guidelines. I figure that there are 2 classes of James Bond "girls" (Ok, women, but what the hell). The first is the fantasy fueling co-star of a Bond flick, the Main Babe. Then there are Secondary Babes, who Bond might dally with (especially Roger Moore's 007, who seemed to have no inner voice saying "no!").

There are also the girls who just kind of decorate the set, the Eye Candy, and finally, Miss Moneypenny who we're not counting here.

This is going to be spread out over several  many posts, seeing as to how there are 22 or so "official" James Bond films and a couple of unofficial ones. God what a horrible task I have ahead, looking through all these pictures and films....I must be strong!

I'm not taking these in any order, but I am starting with the first Main Babe, Ursula Andress

She rose from the sea like Venus in A White Bikini in the second half of the first "official" James Bond film adaption, Dr. No (1962).

She was born in Switzerland in 1936, making her about 26 when she appeared as Honeychile Ryder.

Andress won a 1964 Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year for her performance in Dr. No. She co-starred with Elvis Presley in the 1963 film, Fun in Acapulco, with Frank Sinatra in 4 for Texas (1963), opposite Marcello Mastroianni in The 10th Victim (1965), and as the countess in The Blue Max (1966). She also appeared in the Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) as Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble, as played by Peter Sellers, to carry out a mission. Her heavy accent was dubbed over in Dr. No, but she used her own voice in Casino Royale

 Appearing onscreen at the beginning of the film, even before Bond, is the first Minor Bond Girl,  Sylvia Trench as played by Eunice Gayson, who was born in 1928.



She appeared in the same minor role in the next 007 film, From Russia with Love.

Both women are clearly rooted in the 1950s ideal . Gayson started in films in 1948 and ended her career in 1972 with some British TV shows.