James Bond Girls

TOMORROW NEVER DIES
BOND'S WOMEN

By TOM SOTER
from MOVIE TIMES, 1999

It may not be very PC anymore, but the phrase “Bond Girl” has become part of the filmgoer’s lexicon. And when Tomorrow Never Dies, the latest James Bond epic, opens on December 19, karate-chopping Michelle Yeoh, veteran of many Chinese action movies with Asian superstar Jackie Chan, will join a list of Bonded beauties that goes all the way back to 1962.

007 Bond Girls: Then & Now: Fresh off her fame from playing Cathy Gale on the 1960s British show The Avengers, Blackman remains one of the most memorable, and oldest, of the Bond girls around. Although she mostly kept to theater work in London since her stint as a Bond girl, American audiences saw her as Penny Husbands-Bosworth in Bridget Jones' Diary (2001).

That was the year when Doctor No, the first Bond adventure, introduced the series’ classic heroine: Honey Rider, played by statuesque and exotic Ursula Andress. Since then, there have been nearly two dozen Bond Girls, whose type has changed with the changing times. The most widely remembered is probably Shirley Eaton, who graced magazine covers and posters as the “golden girl” in Goldfinger (1964), killed by having her body painted gold.

But others have left their mark, as well, including pop singer Grace Jones (A View to a Kill, 1985), TV mini-series bad girl Barbara Carrera (Never Say Never Again, 1983), Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman heroine Jane Seymour (Live and Let Die, 1973), Shakespearean-trained Diana Rigg (On Her Majesty’s Secret Service, 1969), and the first proto-feminist Bond babe, Barbara Bach (The Spy Who Loved Me , 1977). Bach, the wife of Beatle Ringo Starr, didn’t think much of Agent 007, however, saying the character was “a male chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets.”

Karate expert Yeoh has other ideas. She hopes to make a mark – both literally and figuratively – as Chinese spy Lin Pao, who is a different kind of Bonded heroine. Says Yeoh: “I’m more of a ‘90s woman. I’m smart but also very physical.”