Who is the topless girl in so many of the classic James Bond credits?

35mm

I've always liked the classic James Bond opening credits sequences that use topless models/dancers/ballerinas silhouetted or otherwise teasing the viewer -- they visualized sex and associated it with 007, yet were classy enough to get a PG rating.

Probably my favorite credits were those for The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and they featured a girl with a distinctive nose (high nasal bridge, with a cute upward sweep at the tip) and very attractive facial features overall (strong cheekbones and chin, with no brow ridge) -- she shows up right off the bat when the "The Spy Who Loved Me" title appears at 8:36, pointing a gun at Roger Moore and wearing a Russian fur cap with the UK flag backlighting their silhouettes (and they do it again later on with a blue backlight). She is shown in most shots in the credits, always displaying a pair of perfect breasts. Her distinctive nose makes it easy to spot her in silhouette doing cartwheels/somersaults, and she's also shown in red-monochrome appearing to be rather fair-skinned with possibly light brown or dark blonde hair. There's also a blue-monochrome sequence of her running topless and hiding behind Roger Moore, that they triple-superimposed, trying to obscure her plainly visible nipples, to get it past the censors for a PG rating.

It's funny how the human brain has a special instinctive capability to recognize the silhouettes of faces -- once I'd seen enough of that girl's facial structure, I started spotting her in the opening credits of other James Bond movies made both earlier and later. I had previously assumed all those topless girls in the opening credits were just random "extras" that walked in off the street and were never seen again on camera, but it appears the producers reused at least one girl on a number of films. Since I love the artful "topless silhouette" opening credits in the pre-90's James Bond films, I decided to review all of them in sequence, starting with From Russia with Love (1963) and ending with License to Kill (1989), to see how many films they actually used her in.

Her first appearance is in Thunderball (1965) starting at 5:04 -- her face is silhouetted in profile, and we see her swimming in several later shots.

There's no sign of her in You Only Live Twice (1967) -- because all the girls are Japanese. Nor is she in On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), which is mostly flashbacks, and there's no way to tell if she was in Diamonds are Forever (1971), which focused on body parts adorned with diamonds.

In Live and Let Die (1973) starting at 6:24, she's the girl waving her hands in the air, and she might be the blonde girl with her back to the camera later on. All the other girls in the credits are africans.

In The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) starting at 9:16, it might be her with what appears to be blonde hair, although the monochromatic shades (instead of back-lit silhouette) and rippling-water effect makes it harder for my brain to be certain if it is the same nose. If that is her, it would not surprise me if it is also her in some other shots that don't show her face in profile, where the girl is clearly fair-skinned with light brown or dark blonde hair.

In Moonraker (1979) starting at 7:23 it is clearly her "flying through the air", and my instinctive-brain registered a match for her tumbling/jumping in other parts of the credits.

In For Your Eyes Only (1981) starting at 8:19 it is clearly her swimming, and then right after that clutching Roger Moore (looks like it could have just been an alternate take/angle of her running/hiding in 1977's TSWLM). And, again, there's a full-color shot towards the end of a fair-skinned blonde... it would make sense for it to be her, but I can't say for sure.

Her last appearance is in Octopussy (1983) starting at 8:45, where you can see her flying through the air in silhouette -- and it might have been her being spun around by a guy, but it was hard to see.

Eighteen years is really pushing it for a model/dancer/ballerina to stay in her "prime" and have an athletic body that looks great topless. Even if she was just 18 in 1965, that would make her 36 in 1983. One possible explanation I can think of, is that unused footage of her underwater in Thunderball and her with Roger Moore in The Spy Who Loved Me was (re)used in For Your Eyes Only, and unused footage of her flying-in-air in Moonraker was (re)used in Octopussy. That would mean she was filmed by five separate productions over a fourteen-year period, and she appeared in the opening credits of seven Bond films in total over an eighteen-year period.

Anyways, does anyone know the name of this girl, and if she ever did any acting or was otherwise publically known? I think it's an interesting piece of 007 trivia.

Barbel

The two swimming girls in the TB titles were Christina Hayward (nee Morse) and Jean McGrath. Of the two, I think it's more likely to be Jean McGrath that you're thinking of but I can't swear to that.
Other models appearing in the titles sequence over the years have included Catrina Skepper and Penny Small (short for Penelope Smallbone, whose name was used for a character in OP).

Welcome to AJB, by the way!

hehadlotsofguts

The belly dancer's name in the FRWL titles, was Julie Mendez. I think it's when Ted Moore's name comes up. Not sure.

Diabolik

Maurice Binder had one hell of a job. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall, strictly out of interest in the craft of course.

superado

Diabolik wrote:

Maurice Binder had one hell of a job. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall, strictly out of interest in the craft of course.

One of my favorite Roger Moore stories:

"Cubby and I visited Maurice on his shooting stage one day and found him on his knees, lovingly spreading Vaseline over the private parts of one of his female nudes. He said it was to keep her pubic hairs flat in front of the wind machine, so as not to incur the further wrath of the censor. I turned to Cubby, ‘And I thought that was one of the producer’s perks?’"

Dirty Punker

Very, very interesting. I might just mention this in one of my future reviews and maybe even link it in the description below. The only one of the models I knew was Penny Small, none of the other ones rung a bell.

thenoisydrum

I'd never even thought about this to be honest. I'm going to have to study. Just gonna have to make sure that the wife and kids don't catch me.....

35mm

Wow, thanks for all the replies to my question!

Barbel wrote:

The two swimming girls in the TB titles were Christina Hayward (nee Morse) and Jean McGrath. Of the two, I think it's more likely to be Jean McGrath that you're thinking of but I can't swear to that.
Other models appearing in the titles sequence over the years have included Catrina Skepper and Penny Small (short for Penelope Smallbone, whose name was used for a character in OP).

Welcome to AJB, by the way!

To me, Catrina Skepper's nose/forehead looks like the best match among all the women mentioned in this thread. But when I googled her, what appears to be her IMDB page says she was born in 1962, which is obviously way too late to be in the early Bond films.

Gassy Man

My dad was on an overseas flight and was seated next to Maurice Binder. They chatted about how the sequences were filmed. I was a kid when my dad told me the story, but he said the girls were usually not actually topiess -- they wore little flesh-colored pasties because even with the way things were photographed, there was concern that something might be seen. This would have been in the 1960s.

Matt S

Gassy Man wrote:

My dad was on an overseas flight and was seated next to Maurice Binder. They chatted about how the sequences were filmed. I was a kid when my dad told me the story, but he said the girls were usually not actually topiess -- they wore little flesh-colored pasties because even with the way things were photographed, there was concern that something might be seen. This would have been in the 1960s.

That's fantastic that your dad was seated next to him. I'm not surprised they're not topless, but his title sequences all looked fantastic, pasties or otherwise.

Thunderpussy

Naked ladies at the start of Bond films ?
.... Can't say I ever noticed.

zaphod99

Thunderpussy wrote:

Naked ladies at the start of Bond films ?
.... Can't say I ever noticed.

Shocking, positively shocking!

The Domino Effect

I'm gutted. I thought it was TP in those sequences.

Barbel

Oh dear- once imagined, cannot be unimagined...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7KMMxAQp8I

35mm

To try and narrow things down, since the model I'm referring to first appeared in 1965, that means she could not have been born after 1947 (assuming she had to be 18 to do that sort of modeling work). Do you know of Bond models that were born prior to 1947?

Barbel

Well, there's Martine Beswick, Margaret Nolan, Lisa Guiraut (aka Leila) to start with- though none of them are likely to be the one you refer to.

Gassy Man

Matt S wrote:

Gassy Man wrote:

My dad was on an overseas flight and was seated next to Maurice Binder. They chatted about how the sequences were filmed. I was a kid when my dad told me the story, but he said the girls were usually not actually topiess -- they wore little flesh-colored pasties because even with the way things were photographed, there was concern that something might be seen. This would have been in the 1960s.

That's fantastic that your dad was seated next to him. I'm not surprised they're not topless, but his title sequences all looked fantastic, pasties or otherwise.

Yeah, my dad was in the service at the time. He actually finished his basic training at Fort Knox right before they filmed Goldfinger, though I'm told very little of the base was actually filmed for the movie. He said Binder was a very nice guy. My dad thought Binder had the greatest job in the world, working around beautiful women on the Bond films, but it was all just work to the guy.