Goldfinger (1964)
The powerful tycoon Auric Goldfinger has initiated "Operation Grand Slam," a cataclysmic scheme to raid Fort Knox and obliterate the world economy. James Bond, armed with his specially equipped Aston Martin (its accessory package includes built-in machine guns, a smoke screen and an ejector seat), must stop the plan by overcoming several outrageous adversaries. First there's Oddjob, the mute servant who kills at the toss of a lethal hat; next, the beautiful Jill Masterson, who gives new meaning to the phrase "golden girl"; and finally, sexy pilot Pussy Galore, whose romantic feelings for Bond complicate her involvement in Goldfinger's high-flying scheme.
Honor Blackman
Plays Pussy Galore
Strong comparisons to Greta Garbo and Marlene Dietrich have been made about this sultry-eyed blonde who was born on 12th December 1927, in London's East End. While this may seem a bit overzealous, Honor Blackman's stylish allure over the years cannot be denied. One of four children, her father worked as a statistician with the Civil Service and her mother was a homemaker. Receiving diction lessons as a teenager, she later attended the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. She temporarily followed in her father's footsteps with a job in the Civil Service, then worked as, of all things, a dispatch rider during the war. This is where she developed some of her trademark athleticism.
Honor received her first acting work in London's West End as an understudy in the play 'The Guinea Pig" and continued on with roles in "The Gleam" in 1946 and "The Blind Goddess" the following year. Films soon came a reality making her debut in _Fame Is the Spur (1946)_ starring Michael Redgrave. In this picture, she dies in a horse-riding accident. It was the beginning of a strange pattern for Honor in which many of her movie damsels would meet untimely deaths. Signed up with the Rank Organization, she joined several other starlet hopefuls in being groomed for better things. She was initially cast as demure, pleasant young things or "English Rose" types and received dependable but unmemorable co-star billing in such films as Daughter of Darkness (1948), Quartet (1948), A Boy, a Girl and a Bike (1949), So Long at the Fair (1950) and Green Grow the Rushes (1951), the last starring a young Richard Burton. Hollywood also took brief notice where she was cast as the second lead femme in MGM's Conspirator (1949) starring Elizabeth Taylor and Robert Taylor.
Following the stress of maintaining a budding career and a divorce from her first husband, Bill Sankey, Honor suffered a nervous collapse in the mid 1950s and was committed for a brief time to a hospital. After regaining her health, she began to rebuild her career in films and on TV with roles in rather obligatory "B" level fare. This culminated in a co-starring role in one of the more famous retellings of the tragic Titanic story, A Night to Remember (1958) which co-starred Kenneth More and David McCallum. Developing a solid footing again , she filmed The Square Peg (1958) with comedian Norman Wisdom and A Matter of Who (1961) with Terry-Thomas. TV series work came her way as well, none more suitable than her role as the leather-clad Mrs. Cathy Gale in the highly popular "The Avengers" (1961) co-starring Patrick Macnee as John Steed. Her incredulous beauty, self-confidence and athletic derring-do not only made her a catch for the men, but helped to inspire the 60s feminist movement. Honor left the show at its peak, however, and was replaced by the equally assertive and popular Diana Rigg as Mrs. Emma Peel.
Not out of work long, Honor continued in films playing the goddess Hera in the popular Greek odyssey adventure Jason and the Argonauts (1963), complete with marvelous Ray Harryhausen special effects, and the melodrama Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey. She then filmed the most popular role of her career. As the daunting Pussy Galore in the classic James Bond movie Goldfinger (1964), she went toe-to-toe with Sean Connery's womanizing "007" and created major sparks on screen, managing to outclass the (wink-wink) double-meaning of her character's name.
This resurgence of popularity should have led to better films but didn't, toiling for the most part in low-level melodrama and routine adventures. She earned raves on stage, however, as the blind heroine in the thriller "Wait Until Dark" and for her dual roles in "Mr and Mrs," based on two of Noel Coward's plays. She also enjoyed working occasionally with second husband, actor Maurice Kaufmann in the play "Move Over Mrs. Markham" and the film horror thriller Fright (1971) with Susan George. On stage she became a throaty-voiced sensation in such musicals as "A Little Night Music," "The Sound of Music," "On Your Toes" and "Nunsense."
Divorced from Kaufmann in 1975, she never remarried (he died in 1997). The couple adopted two children in the late 1960s, Lottie and Barnaby. Now a septuagenarian, the ever-lovely and still glamorous Honor performs frequently on stage, film and TV, more recently working in the long running hit comedy series in England "The Upper Hand" (1990) and her one-woman stage show "Wayward Ladies."
Margaret Nolan
Plays Dink
Today Margaret Nolan is probably best remembered for her role as 'Dink' in Goldfinger (1964) and her "Carry On..." films roles.
Born in 1943 in London, Margaret Nolan had a career as a glamour model under the name of Vicki Kennedy, even posing for Playboy magazine. Entering films in 1963 in _Saturday Night Out (1963)_ saw her catapulted into Goldfinger (1964).
Her roles in the "Carry On..." films is probably her best remembered work in cinema. Often cast mainly for her fabulous buxom figure and good looks, Margaret was perfectly cast in _Carry On Girls (1973)_ , made six "Carry On..." performances in all and was very successful in all of her roles, displaying good comedy acting skills.
She has now retired to Spain.
Also worked as a glamour model under the name Vicki Kennedy.
Appeared in Playboy 1965 after playing Dink in 'Goldfinger'.
Measurements: Publicity for "Goldfinger" describes her "magnificent body [41-23-37] provides the golden background for the credits..."
Studied ballet but "I grew too tall."
Measurements (according to her publicity as glamour model Vikki Kennedy): 39C-24-38
Besides the role of 'Dink' in Goldfinger, she was also 'The golden girl' in the title credits sequence
Shirley Eaton
Luscious British stunner Shirley Eaton found gold-plated stardom in the mid-1960s, yet she was not considered an "overnight success". For nearly a decade she had been out and about as a seductive fixture in slapstick farce. While her sudden stardom elevated her into the Hollywood maelstrom of film offers, her profile as a quality actress did not continue to grow as anticipated. In fact, the dark-browed blonde bombshell quickly grew disillusioned and eventually decided to let it all go. Long before Beatrice Arthur and company came to TV, Hollywood had its original "Golden Girl"...literally!
The London-born actress began on stage as a youth, making her debut at age 12 in "Set to Partners" (1949) and following it up the next year with Benjamin Britten's "Let's Make an Opera". First on TV in 1951, the pretty teen soon started appearing fleetingly in films as sexy window dressing (harem girls, etc.). Under contract to Alexander Korda in her early career, she found an encouraging break with minor parts in such comedies as Doctor in the House (1954) and The Love Match (1955). She quickly rose to co-star status in equally the droll features Sailor Beware (1956), Three Men in a Boat (1956), The Naked Truth (1957) and Doctor at Large (1957) opposite top talents Peter Sellers and Dirk Bogarde. Upon Korda's death in 1956, Shirley joined (for about two years) the Rank Organization. The down side of it all was that her physical attributes were overshadowing her acting talent. Every once in awhile she would relish playing a villainess in a drama, such as in The Girl Hunters (1963), but, for the most part, she was the spectacularly beautiful foil playing it straight amidst the madcap antics of a "Carry On" movie. Trained also in ballet and singing, she was afforded a single chance to sing and dance on film in Life Is a Circus (1958) and managed to also grace the BBC in a few of their musical formats of the 1950s.
In cinema, Shirley finally broke out internationally (and quite unexpectedly) when she played Jill Masterson, one of a bevy of scantily-clad beauties linked to titular archvillain Gert Fröbe in the "007" film Goldfinger (1964). And like many Bondian girls before and since, her character dearly paid for her furtive romantic clinches with hero Sean Connery. While Shirley had precious little time on screen, her memorable 24 karat gold death scene (she was painted head to toe in gold paint and "died" of skin suffocation) became the eye-catching draw for the movie. She was splattered everywhere -- on movie posters, in press junkets and in publicity campaigns. Despite the formidable attention the movie received in the form of Honor Blackman's high-kicking "Pussy Galore" character and Shirley Bassey's famous rendition of the title song playing the airwaves, it was Eaton's gilded visuals that became THE iconic image of not only the movie but the whole "007" phenomena.
Shirley immediately capitalized on her sudden burst of fame by seeking work in Hollywood. Finally away from the constrictions of British farce, she earned a number of female leads in crime drama and rugged adventures. The results, however, were exactly the same. When not being swallowed up by the mesmerizing Ivan Tors scenery in such movies as Rhino! (1964) and Around the World Under the Sea (1966), she was being upstaged by the derring-do of a hirsutely handsome he-man (Hugh O'Brien in the classic whodunnit Ten Little Indians (1965)); the antics of a huge comedy star (Bob Hope in Eight on the Lam (1967)) or the hammy delivery of a horror icon (Christopher Lee in The Blood of Fu Manchu (1968) . Shirley's film career ended on an unspectacular note with her participation as Sumuru, the ambitious leader of an all-woman's society called Femina, in both The Million Eyes of Sumuru (1967) and The Seven Secrets of Sumuru (1969). Underdone by its tame script, at the very least she was THE star.
Disappointed by the predictable direction her career had taken, she ended her Hollywood stay by the time 1970 rolled by. Thereafter, she dedicated herself to her family and developed a writing style. The widow of writer Colin Lenton-Rome, she has two children. In 1999 she published her autobiography entitled Golden Girl and in 2006 marketed an "intimate diary" of poems. These days Shirley can still be glimpsed from time to time at film festivals that appreciate her cult celebrity.
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