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A Bond girl who acted with Sean Connery six decades ago was unrecognizable when she surfaced for a rare outing in Los Angeles this week.
Born in Rome, the Italian actress got her start in the 1950s and forged a movie career that spanned both Europe and the United States.
It was in the 1960s, however, that she established herself as a glamorous femme fatale who seduces agent 007 as a trap to take him prisoner at gunpoint.
Although her film career continued on both sides of the Atlantic, she never emerged from under the shadow of her most famous role.
At the end of the 1970s she left the movies upon her marriage to her media mogul husband, whom she was spotted with in California on Thursday.
Who is this 88-year-old?
A Bond girl who acted with Sean Connery six decades ago was unrecognizable when she surfaced for a rare outing in Los Angeles this week
At the end of the 1970s she left the movies upon her marriage to her media mogul husband, whom she was spotted with in California on Thursday
The bombshell in question is Luciana Paluzzi, whom James Bond fans will remember as the villainous Fiona Volpe in the 1965 classic Thunderball.
She was seen this week with her husband Michael Jay Solomon, 87, who headed Warner Bros International Television in the 1980s and 1990s and helped introduce American TV to opening markets like Russia, China and India as the Cold War ended.
Luciana was stylish as ever this Thursday in a summery white top-trouser combo, topped with a fluttering pastel floral wrap.
Wearing her still fiery hair back in a ponytail, she accessorized with a gleaming set of sunglasses and rounded off the look with white shoes.
She betrayed no hint that she was drawing close to her 10th decade, staying ramrod straight as she strolled across a parking lot with her husband.
Her early career included American movies like Return to Peyton Place and British projects like the World War II drama No Time to Die – which was released in 1958, decades before there was a Bond film of the same name.
She was active in European cinema, as in the 1956 Brigitte Bardot comedy Plucking the Daisy and the 1959 Italian romp My Wife’s Enemy with Marcello Mastroianni.
In 1965, she achieved her lasting fame as the leggy, sultry SPECTRE assassin who tries to entice James Bond to his death in Thunderball.
The bombshell in question is Luciana Paluzzi, whom James Bond fans will remember as the villainous Fiona Volpe in the 1965 classic Thunderball
In 1965, she achieved her lasting fame as the leggy, sultry SPECTRE assassin who tries to entice James Bond to his death in Thunderball
Although she initially auditioned for the leading lady Domino Petacchi, that part went to French actress Claudine Auger, with Luciana left playing the smaller role of Fiona
She was seen this week with her husband Michael Jay Solomon, who headed Warner Bros International Television in the 1980s and 1990s
Luciana was stylish as ever this Thursday in a summery white top-trouser combo, topped with a fluttering pastel floral wrap
Wearing her still fiery hair back in a ponytail, she accessorized with a gleaming set of sunglasses and rounded off the look with white shoes
Although she initially auditioned for the leading lady Domino Petacchi, that part went to French actress Claudine Auger, with Luciana left playing the smaller role of Fiona, which ultimately afforded her more opportunity to chew the scenery.
She subsequently remarked that she ‘rejoiced’ when she was cast as Fiona instead of Domino ‘because actually I thought that it was more fun to play.’
Aficionados of the series will never forget the iconic scene when Fiona seduces 007, then holds him captive at gunpoint – nor the subsequent scene when he dances with her as a ploy to throw her in front of a bullet meant for him.
When she and Sean Connery filmed their bedroom scene, there were ‘easy 50 photographers’ present to take still images, Luciana claimed.
So they played the scene for the still photographs three times without even filming it, and then the photographers were ejected so that the shoot day could progress.
Thunderball rocketed Luciana to global notoriety, but also came during the era where James Bond movies were at the height of camp.
Her film career came to an end in 1979 when she married her media mogul husband, precipitating her withdrawal into a private life at his side; pictured 1965
Her post-Bond career included American films like a Western called Chuka with Rod Taylor and the US-Japanese sci-fi film The Green Slime (pictured)
‘To do a Bond picture, it’s a blessing but also a curse,’ she reflected in a documentary about Bond girls : ‘because when I went back to Italy, the directors that were the Fellinis, the Antonionis, the ones that were really important, the Viscontis of the time, they didn’t wanna have anything to do with me.’
She explained: ‘They loved me. I knew them all and they were all very sweet and very nice, but when it came to do one of their pictures, no, because it was like a comic strip. But I worked for 27 years, so I can’t complain.’
Her post-Bond career included American films like a Western called Chuka with Rod Taylor and the blaxploitation picture Black Gunn, as well as the internationally co-produced prison drama 99 Women and the US-Japanese sci-fi film The Green Slime.
Luciana continued working with Thunderball director Terence Young on such pictures as War Goddess, which was about Amazons, and the drama The Klansman, which marked the film debut of the young OJ Simpson.
In Europe, her work included the 1975 Italian sex comedy L’Infermiera (The Nurse), which starred her alongside her fellow Bond girl Ursula Andress.
Her film career came to an end in 1979 when she married her media mogul husband, precipitating her withdrawal into a private life at his side.
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