The Bond Girls Of The '60s and '70s: Who Was Your Favorite Femme Fatale?

Spy movies are great fun, dashing leading men are a plus, but many would say the charm of the 007 series can be summed up in two words: Bond Girls. The 1960s got the ball rolling with Ursula Andress, Daniela Bianchi, Honor Blackman, and Claudine Auger in Dr. No (1962), From Russia With Love (1963),  Goldfinger (1964), and Thunderball (1965).The tradition only continued through the late '60s and the 1970s as well. Who are your favorite Bond Girls? Which are the ones you grew up admiring? Here's a look at the legendary beauties who made James bond's job to treacherous and yet so rewarding as well. 

Ursula Andress is the first Bond Girl, and many fans consider her the best. She certainly set the pace, and the temperature, for those who followed. Portraying the character Honey Ryder, Andress made Bond Beauty history the moment she stepped out of the ocean in 1962’s Dr. No in that famous white bikini. 

In From Russia With Love, James Bond began a long and adversarial relationship with the Soviet Union. The Cold War was all too real -- and the allure of Russian beauties was at least a common fantasy. Daniela Bianchi, born in Rome, was not a Russian seductress -- but she was a seductress, so the filmmakers could work with that. She played Tatiana Romanova -- she's a Russkie with a heart of gold and she would look good in a burlap sack. Her extreme pulchritude just proves how good James Bond is at his job. Admire his focus here, in which Bond is trying to learn "the mechanism:"

Tatiana: The mechanism is... Oh James, James... Will you make love to me all the time in England?

James Bond: Day and night. Go on about the mechanism.

Honor Blackman appeared as Pussy Galore in 1964’s Goldfinger. As Goldfinger’s personal aviatrix she is a most deadly vixen, with skills as a crack shot and an expert in Judo. But she eventually will succumb to Bond’s charm in the end. The moment they meet is priceless -- Bond wakes up, groggy, in an airplane with a beautiful woman standing over him :

James Bond: Who are you?

Pussy Galore: My name is Pussy Galore.

James Bond: I must be dreaming.

And speaking of Goldfinger, who can forget the moment Shirley Eaton appears wearing nothing but that gold paint. Her character ends up dead on Bond’s bed, but don't buy the story that she actually died in real life. Both Shirley Eaton, who played Jill in the movie, and Margaret Nolan, the gold-painted model in the title sequence, are alive and well.

In Thunderball (1965) we meet Domino, played by Claudine Auger in another iconic swimsuit. She first met Bond during his diving trip at Nassau in the Bahamas, when her flipper was caught on some coral and Bond got her loose. After they had a poolside lunch together, Bond caught her off guard when he knew her nickname.

Domino: How do you know my friends call me Domino?

James Bond: It's on the bracelet on your ankle.

Domino: So! What sharp little eyes you've got.

James Bond: Wait till you get to my teeth.

Sean Connery retired from playing James Bond after You Only Live Twice (1967), so for 1969's On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Bond was played by Australian actor George Lazenby. The main Bond Girl in that film was Diana Rigg, who was enticing enough to inspire 007 to propose marriage, and Joanna Lumley played another of the film's seductive sirens.

In 1971, red-haired beauty Jill St. John portrayed Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever and she was the first American Bond girl. Her character was a sly diamond smuggler whose name came from the fact that she was born on the first floor of Tiffany's New York store, while her mother was shopping for a wedding ring. 

Live and Let Die (1973) had classic beauty Jane Seymour as “Solitaire” an innocent Tarot card-reader and virginal High Priestess who worked for the evil Dr. Kananga (Yaphet Kotto). Bond (Roger Moore) told her "The cards say we will be lovers." She stated it was "impossible" and "forbidden" for her to lose her virginity through earthly love - it would mean the loss of her magical powers. But she eventually helped Bond in defeating the villain and his evil plans. 

In The Man With the Golden Gun Bond has two beauties vying for his attention; Mary Goodnight (Britt Ekland) and Andrea Anders (Maud Adams). 

Next, in 1977's The Spy Who Loved Me, the stunning Barbara Bach played the icy Russian Major Anya Amasova, otherwise known as Agent Triple XXX. She was considered the first 'liberated' Bond girl, equal in skills and abilities to Bond himself. Barbara was also known as the "first girl-power Bond beauty" who posed for Playboy magazine to promote the Bond film.

The last Bond beauty in the 70’s was Dr. Holly Goodhead (Lois Chiles) in 1979’s Moonraker. This intelligent Bond girl (a graduate of Vassar College with a PhD. degree and a NASA-trained astrophysicist and astronaut) first met Bond at Drax Industries in Southern California. When Bond (Moore) came up to her, he asked for "Dr. Goodhead" and was astonished to find this beautiful woman. "A woman" she snidely replied "Your powers of observation do you credit, Mr. Bond."