The ‘Bond girl’ who completely forgot they were a ‘Bond girl’: “I’ve changed my artistic name”
Playing a prominent female role in a James Bond movie has the potential to follow an actor around for their entire career, and it’s not always the most positive experience.
While there are plenty of established names who boarded the long-running spy franchise and didn’t experience any notable after effects because audiences already knew who they were, the same can’t be said for some of the relative unknowns who’ve been plucked from obscurity.
These days, Rosamund Pike is an Academy Award-nominated and Golden Globe-winning star with two decades of acclaimed performances under her belt, but she still can’t outrun the shadow of 007, and even admitted to denying she was the person who played Miranda Frost in Die Another Day when in public.
The ‘Bond girl’ archetype isn’t as one-dimensional and limiting as it was in the past, which is the least to be expected when the franchise has always been obligated to adapt, evolve, and move with the times. However, several former cast members have confessed to the long-lasting damage it caused them professionally.
At the complete opposite end of the spectrum is the only ‘Bond girl’ who completely forgot they were even a ‘Bond girl’, which goes to show how much of an impact it made. Then again, seeing as she was literally listed in the credits as ‘Blonde Beauty’, it makes sense that it would slip Irka Bochenko’s memory.
Roger Moore’s laughable fourth outing as the secret agent in Moonraker wasn’t Bochenko’s film debut, but it was the first time she’d been part of a major production. Initially, she hoped to land the female lead, but had to make do with being a henchwoman for Michael Lonsdale’s Hugo Drax.
“I was modelling when my agent told me about the audition for Moonraker,” she recalled to Bond Locations. “At first, I wanted to get the big part, to play Dr Holly Goodhead. Margot Capelier, who was responsible for casting, told me that I was too young to play a leading or even supporting role. I was very upset, but she promised me that it would be a very beautiful role and that I should do it.”
Her biggest contribution was luring Bond into a hidden temple where he’s dropped via a trapdoor into snake-infested waters. It wasn’t exactly the “very beautiful role” she’d been promised, and after Moonraker led to a lengthy sabbatical from acting that lasted over 20 years, Bochenko couldn’t even remember that she’d been a ‘Bond girl’.
“At the time I was in Moonraker, nobody knew that the James Bond franchise would last that long,” she explained. With her silver screen days a thing of the past, Bochenko became an artist, writer, fashion designer, singer, and songwriter, which bumped 007 out of her memory banks.
“I even forgot that I was a ‘Bond girl,'” she admitted. “I became an author and composer in France. I’ve changed my artistic name to Iren Bo.” For some, the chains of the trope can weigh heavily on a career. For Bochenko, it mattered so little that she ended up forgetting she’d done it at all.
