Eon Productions/Jennifer Bui/Thrillist
The Living Daylights | Eon Productions
Rule 1: Let Grace Jones be your spirit animal
Virginia Hey appeared as General Pushkin’s paramour Rubavitch in 1987’s The Living Daylights.
Bond suspects Pushkin’s KGB men of targeting MI6 agents, but they’ve
also been after his latest lady, a Czech cellist played by Maryam d'Abo.
Hey: I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was in the
running for the lead role. [Producer] Barbara Broccoli came out of the
back room while I was auditioning and said, “Oh Virginia, I’ve just been
watching your audition and I really like you. You’ve got the perfect
look for a lead role.” And I said, “What? For the lead role? Oh my God,
I’m so glad I didn’t know. I would’ve been so nervous.” She said, “Well,
don’t get too excited because unfortunately, you’re close to 6ft and
[the part is] a very fragile cellist. However, we’d like to write you
something. What would you like to play? Someone working on the good side
or the bad side?” I said, “Oh my God, bad, of course.” Naturally! She
laughed, and I said, “Can I have a great big gun and crawl across
rooftops in a spandex jumpsuit?” Like Grace Jones did [in A View to a Kill].
She laughed and laughed. And she said, “Well I can’t promise you the
gun and spandex jumpsuit and crawling across rooftops, but we will write
you something.”
Live and Let Die | Eon Productions
Rule 2: Yield to the Hollywood hype machine
Jane Seymour appeared as Solitaire, the virginal tarot
card reader who catches Bond’s eye while he’s tracking a New Orleans
gangster, in 1973’s Live and Let Die.
Seymour: [After I got the part] I wasn’t allowed to
tell anyone for two and a half weeks. And they had a famous photographer
photograph me and make me look like I was the sexiest thing on the
planet. He also had to write these articles about me, like a three-page
thing for when it came out about how they’d searched the world and
they’d found the sexiest woman alive. Of course I wasn’t at all, I was
this very innocent 20-year-old. It was terribly embarrassing because he
wrote things like I liked to run naked through long grass, which was
printed and became the first of my many factoids: things I can’t get rid
of that were published that have nothing to do with me. My father,
being a rather practical OB-GYN, pointed out to me that if I ran naked
through long grass, I would cut myself.
Diamonds Are Forever | Eon Productions
Rule 3: Kick Sean Connery in the nuts
Trina Parks was the first African-American actress to
appear in any Bond film. She played a bodyguard named Thumper, whose
partner was naturally Bambi, in 1971’s Diamonds Are Forever.
Parks: After Sean brings me down off the rock, and you
know, I put my arms around him, like I’m flirting before I kick him in
the groin. Well I was being very careful for a couple of takes, and then
I remember Mr. Hamilton saying, “Trina, why are you being so soft?”
Because they knew I had more strength. And I said, “Oh, well I didn’t
want to hurt him.” [Director] Guy Hamilton starts laughing and says,
“You know he has a cup on, right?” So then for the next couple shots
after that, I really did it.
You Only Live Twice | Eon Productions
Rule 4: When not kicking Connery in the nuts, marvel at the man’s magnetism
Karin Dor played Helga Brandt, the “secretary” of a SPECTRE associate in 1967’s You Only Live Twice. She attempts to kill Bond, but when she fails, she’s dropped into a tank of piranhas.
Dor: I had never seen Connery in a picture before...
but my agent was addicted to Connery. When we were watching him
rehearsing, I thought, “I don’t think he’s so exciting.” I thought he
was nothing to flip your wig over. And then they hit the clapboard and
the cameras were rolling, and he was another man. He wouldn’t give
everything in rehearsal, but when the cameras were on, he was
unbelievable.
The Man with the Golden Gun | Eon Productions
Rule 5: Try not to sweat
Britt Ekland portrayed Mary Goodnight, Bond’s assistant in Bangkok, in 1974’s The Man with the Golden Gun.
Ekland: The only direction I ever had was that a Bond girl doesn’t sweat -- she glows.
Diamonds Are Forever | Eon Productions
Rule 6: Try not to drown
Trina Parks: The water scene
probably wouldn’t be done today. We dive into the water, and Bond has
to keep us down while the FBI people come running in and start talking.
And we stayed underwater. It’s not like we got up, went to our dressing
rooms, and they did another scene. We were underwater the whole time.
Really! I was like, “Can’t you shoot them and then us?”
Live and Let Die | Eon Productions
Rule 7: Duck!
Jane Seymour: There was a scene where we
were being shot at by machine guns. They came and said, “OK, you lie
down here in the sand. This is where you have to be. It’s very
important, it’s a close-up on you, which means you have to be exactly
there and Roger [Moore] has to be exactly there.” So they placed me and
said, “OK, action.” And all of a sudden, these explosives start
detonating between my fingers [simulating bullet strikes]. They never
told me the explosives were there between my fingers. I could’ve blown
my hands off. And they fired a live machine gun within two feet of my
ears from behind me. As Roger described it in his book, I literally
buried my head in the sand like a bloody mole. Like, “Aaaah!” [Laughs]
And then after that, we watched the movie and all the scenes where they
were firing machine guns at us, whenever I’m moving from A to B, you can
see my hands coming up to my ears to block out the noise.
Octopussy | Eon Productions
Rule 8: Find an ass double
Kristina Wayborn played Octopussy’s top soldier, Magda,
in the eponymous 1983 film. After they sleep together, Bond famously
asks her about her unusual tattoo.
Wayborn: When I did that insert in the bed -- that little Octopussy tattoo
-- I had left. I wanted to go have fish & chips at the cafeteria.
So I asked this one girl, “Hey, do you want to be my bum?” And she said,
“Yeah! Yeah I do!” I said, “Have at it.” So when they pan down to that
little tattoo, that’s not me. That was her and I was eating fish &
chips.
Octopussy | Eon Productions
Rule 9: Follow Dr. Moore’s orders
Kristina Wayborn: I remember this
maharaja’s palace where we stayed and I was on the top floor. Roger
Moore and his wife Luisa were downstairs. I remember somebody was
getting very ill from the water there, and that maybe they had to ship
them off via ambulance, and so we were all deathly afraid that something
was going to happen to us. I got up one morning and brushed my teeth,
and kinda forgot. So I freaked out, and Roger and Luisa heard me
downstairs. Roger came up in his robe with a big bottle of Jack Daniel's
and said, “Oh darling, do gargle and swallow.” He was thinking he was
disinfecting me or something.
The World Is Not Enough | Eon Productions
Rule 10: Make the most of the premiere party
Serena Scott Thomas portrayed Dr. Molly Warmflash, a physician who clears a badly injured Bond for duty after he seduces her into a doctor’s note, in 1999’s The World Is Not Enough.
Scott Thomas: They flew my husband and I out to London
to the premiere of the movie, and it was done in the same style as the
movie. The way the whole James Bond franchise is done -- just the utmost
style and luxury. Everybody really dresses up for those premieres. It’s
very fun. A lot of men are in black tie and the girls are wearing party
dresses. It’s just an occasion. I think nowadays, everything’s so
casual, it’s very refreshing when you go to an event like that. Maybe
I’m just old-fashioned, but it’s just a lot of fun. And the party was
incredible.Jane Seymour: They didn’t provide a car for me to go to the premiere, so I just hired a local taxi service to take me. But of course, because it wasn’t a fancy limo, it couldn’t come anywhere near the theater to pick me up afterwards and get me to the party. So I was stranded. I eventually got to wherever the party was, and they put me at the worst table. They put me with the accountants in the back room. And then Roger Moore found me and said, “What the hell are you doing sitting here?” I said, “This is where they put me.” He was furious, and he brought me to where his table was. But I was not well looked-after, that was for sure. It was weird. You’d have thought that the leading lady of a Bond film would at least have a car to take her to the premiere and at least be given a table somewhere near where everyone else who made the movie was. But the accountants were very nice people.
Live and Let Die | Eon Productions
Rule 11: Prepare for the unexpected backlash
Before Bond becomes fixated on Jane Seymour’s Solitaire, he has a dalliance with CIA agent Rosie Carver (played by Gloria Hendry), his African-American colleague on the Caribbean expedition in Live and Let Die.
Gloria Hendry: I was definitely rejected, quite a bit.
In various parts of the country they would blacken out my love scene. I
mean, it was not the first time a woman of color kissed a Caucasian man
in a movie. But for some strange reason, it wasn’t shown. I got all
kinds of flack. Really. And it was a surprise.
Live and Let Die | Eon Productions
Rule 12: Be famous, then probably less famous
Gloria Hendry: I did have a flurry of
interviews, and people asking me to donate my time to charities and
fundraising. That all went on for a couple of years, but then when 1975
hit, everything seemed to come to a halt. Things stopped and it was
like, what happened? And then from that point on, for the next 10 years,
it was almost nothing. In the ‘80s, I tried to start again, but it was
nothing like it was. So no, it has not helped my career. It helped my
popularity. I’m all over the place. The fans still recognize me. You go
on the Internet, you see me everywhere. It goes on for probably a
hundred pages. But as far as financially, no, not at all.
Jane Seymour: There was one movie in particular that I
remember that I was literally only turned down at the last minute. They
wanted me, and I would’ve got the role, but the moment the director
found out I’d been a Bond girl, he just said no. That did happen to me.
But you know what? It was disappointing at the time, but no one mentions
that movie anymore or anyone in it. They still mention Live and Let Die.Trina Parks: For a while there I was getting recognized. Maybe more in LA than New York. But even when I moved to Palm Springs, people recognized me -- and that was in 2002! A bunch of retirees live there, so they all know the movie.
The Man with the Golden Gun | Eon Productions
Rule 13: Own the part
Britt Ekland: I have read that Monica Bellucci said she will not be called a Bond girl
and at 51, I kind of agree with her. She might feel ridiculous being
called a Bond girl. But in my mind, and in my experience, there are no
Bond women. There are only Bond girls. Because that’s what we were. We
were told to wear a bathing suit and look good. Adore the villain or, in
my case, adore Bond. If we were to go back and deal with everything
that was politically incorrect, we’d have no movie history, and that
would be very, very sad.
Virginia Hey: I don’t think it exploited women at all, I
think it just went along with the times, and in the ‘60s and ‘70s,
women were perceived as sensual, healthy, beautiful, and sexual. Whereas
now, in 2015, they’re sort of perceived as being more resourceful and
more independent, almost more businesslike. More manlike. Which is a
shame, actually. I wish that more women would be perceived as more
sensual again, because women have a certain sexiness that’s so different
from men’s.Kristina Wayborn: Back in ‘60s, women were more eye candy. But I also think Bond films always have that strong woman. Even Ursula [Andress] in Dr. No, she was drop dead gorgeous, but she had an inner core, and inner strength. And in the movies that have followed, the women have become stronger and stronger. That’s a very good thing. I think we’ll see that in Spectre as well. I think we’ll see a lot more of Bond’s emotional side, as we did in Skyfall.
Epilogue: The next 007?
Serena Scott Thomas: How about a female James Bond? Jane Bond! That would be fun.
Gloria Hendry: I would definitely like to see them
venture out, to continue to move forward, and grow more with the
population. I think they know that. And hopefully, they are set on doing
that for the next Bond. It would be wonderful to see someone in my hue.
I would love to see that happen today.THRILLIST: Have you heard the rumors about Idris Elba?
Hendry: Oh my God, are you kidding me? That would be incredible! Oh he’s so gorgeous. I would love it. Oh my God, are they thinking about him? Well, we are going to have prejudice. Because we always do, even in this modern time. But that would be fantastic.
Kristin Hunt is a staff writer for Thrillist, and might riot -- in a bad way -- if Damian Lewis is the next Bond. Follow her to Idris Elba support groups at @kristin_hunt.
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