The ‘Bond girl’ who fled Hollywood to save their career: “Now I work all the time”
On paper, an actor making their Hollywood debut in one of the highest-profile releases on the annual calendar should realistically serve as the springboard to bigger and better things. Unfortunately, that wasn’t always the case for the women who appeared in early James Bond movies.
While it was undoubtedly beneficial in terms of visibility and opening the doors to new opportunities, it quickly became one of the industry’s most perilous double-edged swords. Of course, plenty of female actors have thrived outside of the 007, but more than a few have seen their careers hit the skids.
There’s a reason why the ‘Bond girl’ archetype earned a reputation for being cursed, with several stars sharing the screen with the likes of Sean Connery, Roger Moore, and Pierce Brosnan admitting that it didn’t have a positive effect on their professional lives they were hoping for when they first signed on.
Many ‘Bond girls’ have carved out successful and lengthy careers themselves; a couple would prefer the label didn’t follow them around in the way it has, and more than one ended up quitting acting altogether. For Claudine Auger, she eventually realised that standing under the bright lights of Tinseltown wasn’t doing her any favours.
She had several roles in international productions under her belt before she took second billing behind Connery as Thunderball‘s Domino, and in the years after the 1965 blockbuster, she’d work with Clint Eastwood in The Eiger Sanction. However, it quickly became clear that the best way to achieve ongoing success in the industry was to return to Europe, which paid huge dividends.
“Now I work all the time,” she told the Los Angeles Times. “Three films a year sometimes. Even here, not many actresses work that much, I think. I did a film I liked in England, Secret Places. And I have just finished a film in France, The Exploits of a Young Don Juan, from a story by Guillaume Apollinaire.”
Auger admitted that “it isn’t easy” trying to maintain a foothold even in international cinema, pointing to how several of her ‘Bond girl’ compatriots from outside the United States and United Kingdom had struggled. “French actresses have never had much success in Hollywood,” she mused. “The Swedes and the Germans do much better than we do. It’s hard to explain why.”
Having decided that Hollywood wasn’t where she wanted to be, Auger was a regular presence in European films, averaging almost one screen appearance annually until her final credit in 1997’s Le Rouge et le Noir. The actor managed to avoid the curse, and all she had to do was stay as far away from mainstream American filmmaking as possible, which is indicative in and of itself.
