What makes a great Bond woman? Many Bond aficionados will have their own unique views. According to one writer, Robert Caplen, Bond women are considered to be ‘ubiquitous symbols of glamour and sophistication’. Bond women are confident, liberated, beguiling, sexy and often irresistable to James Bond.
At the same time, they can also be ‘baddies’ or co-agents, or simply innocent women caught up in the dangerous and volatile world that Bond inhabits. The historian Jeremy Black also made the interesting point that what was so different about Ian Fleming’s portrayal of women in his novels was that they were not constrained or defined by the search for matrimony or motherhood, and this was often reflected in the films, such as the character of Honey in Dr. No. In this sense, the Bond women were very ‘modern’ women, products of a new and changing age.
Back in 2012, another writer, Samantha Weinberg, penned an interesting short article celebrating the role of the Bond women in the success of the James Bond screen franchise. Her article, entitled ‘You Only Age Once’, appeared in the UK’s Daily Mail newspaper (April 6, 2012) and opened: ‘When she emerged from the sea in Dr. No, wearing a white bikini and carrying a conch shell, Ursula Andress defined the Bond girl. She was beautiful, brave and cursed with a sexually suggestive name: Honey Rider’. Weinberg argued in 2012 that, in 50 years of the Bond films, the basic formula had not really changed. Ten or so years later, as we wait patiently for news about the next James Bond movie and what shape it might possibly take, it is time to revisit some of her key points, and now celebrate 60+ years of the tremendous contribution the Bond women have made to the huge box-office achievements of James Bond in the cinema.
Bonding with Bond
In 2012, Weinberg noted that Ian Fleming, the creator of 007, had an uneasy relationship with women himself, but his female characters were rarely weak. This has also been reflected in the James Bond movies. In some of the films, the character and back-story of the Bond girls gets rather lost in the casting director’s enthusiasm for tanned flesh and a toned figure but, according to Weinberg, ‘there’s usually a female with a bit of grit, wit and intelligence’, such as a fellow agent or a murderous femme fatale.
Weinberg claimed that only one Bond girl ever managed to secure Bond’s affections in a meaningful way – Tracy (Diana Rigg) in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (at the time of her article, Weinberg had appeared to have forgotten Vesper in Daniel Craig’s first Bond movie, and could not have predicted the important role of Madeleine Swann in Craig’s last two Bond films). Weinberg also argued that there was another more constant female presence in Bond’s life: Miss Moneypenny, M’s loyal secretary. Moneypenny was always there at M’s door, ready for a few brief lines of flirtation with 007 on his way in or out: ‘In neither the books nor the films was their flirtation consumated, which sets Moneypenny apart from the ranks of the Bond girls’. This flirtatious version of Moneypenny was continued, of course, in Craig’s last three 007 movies, where M’s secretary was ably played by Naomie Harris.
From a View To a Thrill
As the Bond movies evolved in the 1960s, a pattern began to emerge with the role of women. As the movies became bigger, it seemed the number and importance of female roles also mirrored this. The Bond women were especially important to the Thunderball plot, for example. A large number of actresses were looked at for the four main female roles in Thunderball (some reports suggest up to 40 women were auditioned and screen-tested). It cost £10,000 (a princely sum in the 1960s) just to audition the 40 women and further narrow down the list. A considerable number of these (possibly up to 22) were considered for the key role of Dominique (‘Domino’) Derval, including Julie Christie (who was a serious contender, but seemed very nervous at her interview), Faye Dunaway, Luciana Paluzzi, Yvonne Monlaur, Marisa Menzies, Gloria Paul and Maria Buccella, to name just a few.
Raquel Welch, whose photo Harry Saltzman had spotted in the October, 1964, issue of Life magazine, was actually offered the role at one point and even signed a contract, but Cubby Broccoli (apparently as a favour to Richard Zanuck at Twentieth Century Fox) reluctantly released her from the contract so that she could appear in the sci-fi movie Fantastic Voyage (1966). Faye Dunaway was also very seriously considered and negotiations took place, but in the end her agent advised her to accept an alternative film role instead (interestingly, her name re-emerged as a possible candidate for Octopussy in the early 1980s).
The role of Domino in Thunderball finally went to a former Miss France of 1958, 23-year old Claudine Auger, while the Italian actress Luciana Paluzzi was given the equally important role of SP.E.C.T.R.E. assassin Fiona Volpe. Auger proved to be a good advocate and staunch defender of the idea of the modern ‘Bond woman’ in her dealings with the press. She told the UK’s Daily Mail, for example, that in her view ‘Bond women are women of the nuclear age’, and she was very keen to show the world that she had brains as well as beauty. This is a stance that has been returned to time and time again by subsequent women in the series.
Femme Fatales
As well as being Bond’s lovers or allies, Bond women, of course, have also been ‘villains’ at times in the franchise, as exemplified by the characters played by Lotte Lenya and Luciana Paluzzi. This became apparent from early on in the franchise. Some excellent casting decisions for the ‘baddies’, for example, were made by director Terence Young and his team for From Russia, With Love, the second 007 movie in the series.
In particular, the critically acclaimed Austrian stage actress Lotte Lenya (real name Karoline Blaumauer) was chosen for the role of the truly creepy Russian Colonel Rosa Klebb, the ex-head of intelligence operations for the Soviet state’s secret murder branch SMERSH. Similarly, Luciana Paluzzi’s lethal killer Fiona Volpe in Thunderball showed a great combination of beauty, brutality and supreme confidence. The way she uses a motorcyle to kill, and then casually disposes of it afterwards is very convincing. Cinema audiences back then had not really seen such bold portrayals of women on the big screen. Moreover, Karin Dor’s villainous SP.E.C.T.R.E. operative Helga Brandt in You Only Live Twice also comes across as both sexually alluring and as a cold-hearted sadist (just look at those scalpel-like knives she at one point considers using on a captive Bond!).
In many ways, the Bond films of the 1960s set the template for many of the subsequent Bond women in the franchise. Audiences were entertained by a whole range of alluring women, ranging from Barbara Bach’s resourceful Russian spy Major Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me and Lois Chiles’s super-intelligent space engineer Dr Holly Goodhead in Moonraker right through to the highly talented Bond women of the Brosnan Bond era. The Brosnan films were also notable, of course, for the introduction of Judi Dench as Bond’s new boss, and there was some great dialogue in Goldeneye concerning her views of Bond (views which arguably mellowed over time). And the Bond films were, by that stage, arguably ahead of their time when it came to questions of gender: in fact, it was not until some 30 years later (June, 2025), that the real world caught up with the fictional world of Bond, when it was revealed that the real-life MI6 has only just appointed its first female boss.
Moreover, the choice of who was going to be the latest female co-star always generated some great publicity for the franchise. As the late, great Sir Roger Moore noted in his book Bond on Bond, ‘There is always huge interest in who is going to be cast as the next Bond girl’.
More recently, of course, the role of the Bond woman took central stage in the franchise and became even more fundamental to the storyline, as illustrated by Vesper Lynd (superbly played by Eva Green) in Casino Royale, and exemplified by the non-Fleming creation Madeleine Swann (played by Lea Seydoux) in Spectre and No Time To Die. The way Madeleine easily shows Bond she can take apart and put together a handgun especially impresses Bond, who is immediately reassured she can handle herself in life-and-death situations. Lea Seydoux was particularly pleased at the complex ‘richness’ of her character, and director Sam Mendes was determined to underline this. In a sense, the award-winning Parisian actress – when she returned for No Time To Die – joined a very exclusive club: women who have made more than one appearance in the Bond series, a club which includes the late Lois Maxwell (Moneypenny), the late Eunice Gayson (Bond’s girlfriend in two films), Swedish actress Maud Adams (two separate roles), and past and present Moneypenny actresses Caroline Bliss, Samantha Bond and Naomie Harris.
Just as Bond is forever, so is the Bond woman. Long may this continue.
Did You Know?
Samantha Weinberg (whose real name is Samantha Fletcher) was the author of The Moneypenny Diaries, which consisted of three books and two short stories, written under the name of Kate Westbrook. These were commissioned by the Ian Fleming estate and were published in 2005-2008.
Daniel Craig and Lea Seydoux in Spectre publicity still.