HONOR BLACKMAN: 1925-2020 GALORE-IOUS
Queen of the Bond Girls is mourned by film world and family as she dies at 94
CASUALTY Hospital drama in 2013 BY TOM BRYANT SHE was arguably the best-known – and certainly most memorably named – of all the Bond Girls.
Actress Honor Blackman, who was propelled to global stardom as Pussy Galore in Goldfinger, has died aged 94, her family announced yesterday.
They acclaimed her as an “extraordinary combination of beauty, brains and physical prowess”.
She was surrounded by loved ones, including her two children, Lottie, 53, and Barnaby, 52, as she died peacefully of natural causes at home in Lewes, East Sussex.
Fellow 007 movie star Britt Ekland said in a tribute last night: “As Pussy Galore you were one of the first Bond Girls. As Mary Goodnight I’m proud to have followed in your footsteps.”
Bond producers Barbara Broccoli and Michael G Wilson said: “Honor was an extraordinary talent and a beloved member of the Bond family.”
Before Honor’s career-defining Bond role, she was already well known in Britain for playing leather-clad, kung-fu-kicking Cathy Gale in the 1960s spy series The Avengers.
By the time she starred opposite Sean Connery in 1964’s Goldfinger she was 38 – old in Hollywood terms.
But she impressed her bosses on the third Bond movie by bringing with her the martial arts skills she had honed as Cathy Gale.
Honor played the smouldering villain aiding Goldfinger’s plot to rob Fort Knox. Movie-goers were captivated by the scintillating on-screen chemistry between her and Connery.
Their playful fight in the hay is still memorable – but Honor did admit years later: “I hate being referred to as a ‘Bond Girl,’ because Pussy Galore was a great character. It would not have mattered what she was in.” Despite her love of the role she later told of her regret at leaving The Avengers for it. “I walked away at the wrong moment,” she said. “They were going to colour and starting to get real film money.”
Honor was born at Plaistow in London’s East End in 1926. Her civil servant father was a strict disciplinarian who taught her to box.
That skill came in useful when she knocked out two boys bullying her brother Ken, who later died of a brain haemorrhage. Her dad also bought her elocution lessons, which she credits for kick-starting her career after a brief interlude as a motorcycle dispatch rider for the Home Office during the Second World War.
She left home at 17 after her dad hit her for wearing make-up – and she hit him back.
Her first acting steps came at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the 1940s and her first stage role was at the Criterion Theatre in London, as an understudy in The Guinea Pig. At 20 she wed businessman Bill Sankey, whom she later described as being like her father. Two years later she had an abortion, illegal at the time, which nearly killed her. The pair divorced and Honor, 29, had a nervous breakdown. She spent four weeks in a mental hospital. In In 1966 with Kaufmann 1961 she wed actor Maurice Kaufmann but they could not have children, so adopted Barnaby and Lottie, but divorced in 1975.
As well as other big-screen roles, Honor made TV appearances in Coronation Street and The Upper Hand.
She was a member of the Liberal Democrats, whose ex-leader Tim Farron tweeted: “You could guarantee bums on seats at any Lib Dem event Honor was at. She was charismatic, principled and kind. A very sad day.”
Extraordinary combination of beauty, brains and physical prowess HONOR’S FAMILY ON ANNOUNCING HER DEATH