The ‘Bond girl’ who became the curse’s first victim: “It’s really hard to break out of the mould”
As a quintessential part of the British canon, the James Bond series has endured as a beloved cultural institution for decades. The iconic 007 agent first emerged in Ian Fleming’s 1953 novel Casino Royale. The first movie in the franchise, Dr No, was released in 1962, marking the beginning of one of the longest-running and well-loved franchises in cinema history.
With almost 30 movies in the series, we’ve seen actors like Sean Connery, Timothy Dalton, and Daniel Craig take on the role of Bond over the years, typically accompanied by a ‘Bond girl’. Female characters within the franchise, however, have been the subject of much discussion by fans and critics, namely due to the fact that the earlier films in the series established Bond women as sexual objects rather than fleshed-out characters.
Often seen in skimpy clothing, usually a bikini, early Bond girls felt like nothing more than a bit of eye candy, appearing as a love interest, overly seductive villain, or assistant to a male antagonist. Cast predominantly for their striking good looks and figures, these women were objectified for the sake of male viewing pleasure, resulting in what is often dubbed ‘the Bond girl curse’.
While the female characters in recent Bond movies are presented with much more complexity (and clothing), in the 1960s and ‘70s it seemed as though being cast as a Bond girl was a ticket to nowhere. Women who played Bond girls often struggled to find work afterwards, simply because many filmmakers saw these women as nothing more than pretty faces who were only cast in Bond films because of their beauty – not their talent.
Luciana Paluzzi, who played Fiona Volpe in Thunderball, once revealed, “To do a Bond picture is a blessing, but it’s also a curse. When I went back to Italy, the Fellinis, Antonionis, and Viscontis wanted nothing to do with me.” The Bond Girl curse simply spelt bad luck for many women hoping to go onto more diverse and interesting roles post-007.
One of the first Bond girls, Martine Beswick, once admitted that she suffered from the curse, like many others, although she hardly regrets her decision to appear in both From Russia With Love and Thunderball. In the former, she played Zora, a woman who engages in a fight with Aliza Gur’s Vida, before portraying an ally of Bond’s, Paula Caplan, in the latter.
She was interviewed by the James Bond fan website MI6 Headquarters about her role, where she revealed, “It was never the best for actresses because really and truly a Bond Girl is a Bond Girl, and it’s really hard to break out of the mould. So, from that point of view only a few have succeeded.”
Following her two Bond performances, Beswick was typecast, appearing in One Million Years BC, where she was instructed to engage in a fight with another female character. She subsequently appeared in various exploitation and horror movies, most notably Dr Jekyll and Sister Hyde, but since the late 1990s, she has rarely acted.
Still, she is happy she got a chance to be in two Bond movies, continuing, “The later girls have survived much easier compared to the earlier ones, but I don’t regret it. It was an incredible experience.” Certainly, the female actors in Bond movies released in the past few decades have fared much better, such as Rosamund Pike, Léa Seydoux, and Halle Berry.
