Posted on 09/30/2007 10:11:11 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SYDNEY (AFP) - Actress Lois Maxwell, who was known to millions of fans through her role as Miss Moneypenny in a series of Bond movies, has died in Australia, an official said Sunday. She was 80.
"She passed away on 29th September at 11:40 pm," a spokeswoman for Fremantle Hospital in western Australia told AFP.
The Canadian-born actress had been living in Australia for several years because her son and his family are based there.
She first played the character, with whom the ever-charming 007 constantly flirted, alongside Sean Connery in "Dr No" in 1962.
She continued to play the role for more than two decades, starring in her final Bond movie, the 1985 "A View To A Kill," with Roger Moore.
"She was my lucky token," Moore told the British broadcaster Sky News Sunday.
"(People) who remember the Bond films with Moneypenny will remember her with great affection. She certainly will be missed by me and I'm sure by millions of fans around the world."
Already an experienced actor before she took on Bond, Maxwell told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation in 2005 that she accepted the Miss Moneypenny role at a difficult time in her life.
"I had a husband who was desperately ill, with two small children and no money, so I called producers I had worked with before and said 'help me,'" she said.
Bond director Terence Young offered Maxwell two Bond roles and she chose Moneypenny, insisting that the director not "put my hair in a bun and horn-rimmed glasses on me."
Asked which was her favourite Bond movie, Maxwell nominated "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," the only one in which Australian George Lazenby played 007.
"I think it's the best film, I mean I think it's an excellent film," she said in the 2005 interview. "Had it not been a Bond film, had it just been a film, it would've been a fabulous film."
The hospital spokeswoman did not give the cause of Maxwell's death.
The first Miss Moneypenny, Lois Maxwell (L) and the current Samantha Bond pose with guns during a press viewing in Slough, 2000. Maxwell, who was known to millions of fans through her role as Miss Moneypenny in a series of Bond movies, has died in Australia.(AFP/File/Odd Andersen)
In this March 30, 1947 picture, Lois Maxwell, 20-year-old Canadian-born actress, receives her Screen Actors Guild member card from the new president of the guild, actor Ronald Reagan, in Hollywood, Calif. Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond movies, has died, the British Broadcasting Corp. reported Sunday, Sept. 30, 2007. She was 80. (AP Photo)
A better photo, from her prime....
She was a pretty gal.. I didn’t realize she had been in 14 Bond movies..
Bond: What would you like me to bring back for you from Holland?
Moneypenny: A diamond....in a ring.
Bond: ...would you mind if it was a tulip?
One of the better running Bond gigs, Ms. Moneypenney and also M.
Movie: THE DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER
Yes...Connnery was to make a second movie - a thriller - with Hitchcock called “The Short Night” —but it was never made unfortunately.
Fortunately we have Marnie.
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Great photographs potlatch!
The real “Bond Girl”!
I’ve got an “unusual” Bond & Moneypenny audio clip somewhere!
They are good ones, huh? I have them sized to match and lightened the colored one.
You TOLD me to remind you, lol!
Very nice posting devolve. I like how you greyscaled the Bond image.
AND, you did get Miss Moneypenny in there too, lol!!
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I had that graphic a bit too dark - I moved 2 shades lighter
Very nice devolve!
“To get mixed up with a man who says never”
Miss Moneypenny may have been the ‘lucky’ one in the movies!
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Yup -
She had a long career and was well known all over the world
I’ve got some screencaptures from the early Sean Connery movies in Moneypenny’s office of James Bond tossing his hat onto a hatrack
I believe that may be where Ian Fleming got his idea for Odd Job in “Goldfinger” to throw his lethal steel edged hat at his victims
Yes, I’m sure I’ve seen that picture.
Nice JOB you two...
...R.I.P. Miss Moneypenny.
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