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Kim Basinger, Halle Berry and More — A Look Back at the Best Bond Women of All Time

Sep 29, 2021 2:30 pm·

By In Touch Staff

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The names. The costumes. The bon mots. Friend or foe, these women give James Bond cause to get shaken. Despite 24 Bond films and even more Bond girls, only 12 achieved icon status.

Fun fact: Ursula Andress didn’t shy away from her sexpot persona. The actress, whose accent was so heavy that her voice in the film had to be dubbed, posed for Playboy in 1965. When a reporter asked why, she simply purred, “Because I’m beautiful.”

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Jill St. John was no less magnetic offscreen. Before marrying her fourth and current husband, Robert Wagner, Jill enjoyed romances with Frank Sinatra and baseball player Sandy Koufax. Rumor has it, even Sean Connery bedded her. Can you blame him?

Scroll down through the gallery below to see an alluring and scantily clad lineup of the sexiest and most dangerous women to go toe to toe with Bond between the sheets.

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1 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Diana Rigg as Countess Teresa di Vicenzo

Bond rescues this depressed damsel in distress on a beach in Portugal as she prepares to commit suicide to escape her life as a mobster’s daughter. But the Countess, a.k.a. Tracy, isn’t your ordinary Bond babe; she and 007 forge a relationship beyond the usual one-night stand. After the spy escapes assassins in Switzerland, she ultimately wins Bond’s heart, and the lovebirds marry. But sadly, the new Mrs. Bond is gunned down by Irma Bunt, Blofeld’s henchwoman, just minutes after the ceremony. Happily, her real life was far from tragic. Diana — an alumna of the U.K.’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art — landed her iconic role of Emma Peel in the cult TV show The Avengers before being a Bond Girl. She will also appear on the next season of HBO’s hit series Game of Thrones, as Lady Olenna Tyrell, a sharp-tongued political matriarch known as the Queen of Thorns.

2 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Jill St John as Tiffany Case

The plot of this 007 film may be hazy, and Bond himself is surprisingly reserved (not one martini!), but Jill’s presence makes up for it. The bombshell, who began acting at the age of 6, spends the majority of the film prancing around in a variety of bikinis as diamond smuggler Tiffany. Named after the jewelry store she was born in, Tiffany makes the list as the first American Bond Girl. After Diamonds, Jill continued her acting career — she had a cameo on Seinfeld’s classic “The Yada Yada” episode — and pursued her second love: cooking, writing a food column for USA Weekend and publishing a cookbook. She’s one tasty dish!

3 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Famke Janssen as Xenia Onatopp

Her attempt to crush Bond between her legs isn’t the only reason why Xenia lands on this list, although her antics certainly are a first. While some Bond Girls are scary — Grace Jones’ May Day, anyone? — Famke’s feisty henchwoman is both terrifying and titillating. Bond first encounters the Soviet villainess during a high-speed race in the hills above Monte Carlo, with Bond’s Aston Martin nose to nose with her Ferrari. Since she obviously had an issue with aggression, 007 smoothed Xenia’s rougher edges with his brand of Bonding, which included some fighting/ foreplay in a sauna. While Xenia met a grisly end, Famke went on to star in the X-Men movies alongside fellow Bond Girl Halle Berry.

4 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Maud Adams as Andrea Anders & Octopussy

Maud holds the distinction of being the only woman cast as a Bond Girl twice, both times opposite Roger Moore’s 007. In The Man with the Golden Gun, Andrea is the bad guy’s main squeeze and as such, sends Bond an ominous gold bullet engraved with its target: 007. As the female lead in Octopussy, a classic name in Bond lore and the only film title to feature a woman’s name, Maud runs an all-woman circus to cover up her jewelry smuggling ring. (Look at the clown, not the Fabergé egg!) Like many lawless Bond Girls, a little R&R with 007 resets Octopussy’s moral compass. Maud herself went on to appear in a third Bond film, as an extra in A View to a Kill.

5 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Kim Basinger as Domino Petachi

The film’s title references Sean Connery’s declaration to the press in 1971 that he would “never again” play James Bond. Could it have been the flawless looks of blonde Kim, in her breakout role, that lured Connery back? Kim was recommended for the part by Talia Shire (Adrian to Sly’s Rocky), after she spotted Kim’s “luminescent” beauty on a TV show. As a Bond Girl, Kim became an American sex symbol and went on to a decade-long reign. Yet Kim’s Domino has more than the requisite looks 007’s sexual sidekick demands; she saves James — and the world — from the wicked Largo just as the villain is about to detonate a nuke. Not that the film doesn’t end with a bang…

6 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore

“My name is Pussy Galore.” The fact that Honor managed to utter her first line with a straight face is almost as shocking as her character’s name — which would still be scandalous even by today’s standards! But Honor oozed couth and class as the leader of an all-female crime ring and self-declared “damn good pilot.” Even Sean Connery’s 007 agrees that she’s no ordinary conquest. “You’re a woman of many parts, Pussy!” he cheekily quips during their barnyard tussle. Pussy soon finds herself caught between her boss, the evil Goldfinger, and 007. Pussy is number eight out
of a total of 57 on-screen Bond conquests but definitely a fan favorite. At 38, she was also the oldest Bond Girl in the franchise’s history. After the film, Honor recorded an album, Everything I’ve Got, and she released her latest single in 2009, titled, interestingly, “The Star Who Fell from Grace.”

7 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Daniela Bianchi as Tatiana Romanova

More than 200 actresses from around the world auditioned for the role of Russian cipher clerk Tatiana, only to lose out to Daniela. Miss Rome and a runner-up for Miss Universe, Daniela thawed the Cold War with her beauty in one of the all-time best Bond films. Assigned to seduce Bond for Mother Russia, Tatiana sneaks into his Istanbul hotel suite in the middle of the night, wearing only a black-lace choker. The pair had a difficult time with pillow talk — Tatiana spoke almost no English and learned her lines phonetically. But her Italian accent was still so heavy, producers had to hire a less-accented actress to re- record her lines. And 007 never says his famous catchphrase, “Bond, James Bond,” in this second installment of the franchise.

8 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Eva Green as Vesper Lynd

The woman who started it all! Vesper Lynd — a play on West Berlin — is by far the most complicated Bond Girl, with a whole diary full of dark secrets. Vesper and Bond’s deep yet doomed romance takes center stage in Casino Royale, explaining how James became the heartless womanizer audiences know and love. He falls hard for the raven-haired, green-eyed beauty and even resigns from MI6 for her. Yet the ultimate show of devotion is when 007 names his martini after her. Bond is more than shaken when he discovers Vesper initially double-crossed him and stirred when she kills herself in a demented bid for redemption.

9 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Mie Hama as Kissy Suzuki

Don’t mess with Mie! The Japanese stunner played a kickass ninja secret agent but was no shrinking violet off camera either. When producers wanted to fire her for not learning English faster, she threatened to commit ritual suicide out of shame. She may have been bluffing, yet movie honchos backed off and Mie kept her role. But public opinion didn’t seem to bother her when she posed for Playboy. Fans in her native Japan were furious she didn’t use a body double (they may be missing the point of the magazine), but Mie was proud to be the first Asian woman to ever grace the nudie mag.

10 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Halle Berry as Jinx Johnson

OK, so the Bond Girl name generator spit out a lemon with Jinx Johnson. Yet Johnson is still the perfect yin to Bond’s double-entendre-loving yang, with wit and beauty to spare. As a freakishly sexy NSA agent, Jinx survives a near drowning in a melting ice palace and ultimately stabs her bitchy rival, Miranda Frost, after a sword fight aboard a plane (hey, it happens). Still, the best action is in the two sex scenes with Halle’s Jinx and Pierce Brosnan’s Bond, which rank as some of 007’s most, er, satisfying. Ursula Andress’ Honey Ryder was the inspiration for the first shot of Jinx walking out of the ocean wearing a retro bikini and strap-on knife. But while Ursula may have initiated the role, Halle was the first African American Bond Girl to play a heroine.

11 of 12

Best Women From James Bond

Barbara Bach as Major Anya Amasova, a.k.a. Agent XXX

Trained in the frozen wastelands of Siberia, Agent XXX is a master spy for the KGB. Widely hailed as the first liberated Bond Girl, XXX outwits Roger Moore’s 007 in several far-flung locales as they vie for possession of a secret microfilm. When Triple X learns Bond shot her lover during the movies’ famed Union Jack parachute opening sequence, the pro in her resists killing him until their mission
is completed. Bond defeats the steel-toothed Jaws, averts global nuclear war and escapes the sinking enemy base Atlantis, only to find himself at the wrong end of XXX’s gun. Too smitten to pull the trigger, she opts to instead make love to the MI6 superspy in their escape pod — which naturally features a luxurious bed and chilled Dom Perignon ’52.

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Best Women From James Bond

Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder

Sometimes the first really is the best! There is no disputing Ursula’s reign as the No. 1 Bond Girl of all time — and she has the only Golden Globe awarded to a Bond actress to prove it. Ursula captured the hearts (and other parts) of males across the world the moment she arose from the Caribbean Sea with nothing but a knife and a white bikini. She established the three musts for Bond Girls to come:
1) sexy name — Honey Ryder; 2) sexy accent — Swiss; and 3) sexy profession — shell diver. But this Honey wasn’t too sweet, kicking a little SPECTRE ass when she had to. Her personal life was equally dramatic: On the day he was killed in a car crash, James Dean had wanted Ursula to join him on his fateful drive — but when he realized that she was in love with actor John Derek (whom she would later marry), Dean sped out of Los Angeles without her.

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