Martine Beswick

Martine Beswick (born 26 September 1941) is an English actress and model perhaps best known for her roles in two James Bond films, From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965), who went on to appear in several other notable films in the 1960s.

Martine Beswick
Beswick in 1974
Born (1941-09-26) 26 September 1941
Port Antonio, Jamaica
OccupationActress, model
Years active1962–1995

Early years

Beswick was born on 26 September 1941 in Port Antonio, Jamaica,[1] to Ronald Stuart Davis Beswick, a British father and Myrtle May (née Penso, 1912-2017) a Portuguese-Jamaican mother.[2]

Beswick, her sister Laurellie (1943–2002) and her mother moved to London in 1954 following the separation of her parents. In 1955, she left high school to work to help support her family.[1]

Film career

Beswick is best known for her two appearances in the James Bond film series. Although she auditioned for the first Bond film Dr. No, she was cast in the second film From Russia with Love as the fiery gypsy girl, Zora. She engaged in a "catfight" scene with her rival Vida (played by former Miss Israel Aliza Gur). She was incorrectly billed as "Martin Beswick" in the title sequence.[3] Beswick then appeared as the ill-fated Paula Caplan in Thunderball.[4] She had been away from the Caribbean so long that she was required to sunbathe constantly for two weeks before filming, to look like a local.

Beswick with Franco Franchi in Ultimo tango a Zagarol (1973)

Beswick went on to appear in One Million Years B.C. opposite Raquel Welch, with whom she also engaged in a catfight. She then appeared in various Hammer Studio low-budget films, most notably Prehistoric Women and the gender-bending Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde, in which she played the titular villainess. She played Adelita in the well-regarded Spaghetti Western, A Bullet for the General (1966) opposite Klaus Kinski and Gian Maria Volonté. She starred as the Queen of Evil in Oliver Stone's 1974 directorial debut Seizure, or Queen of Evil. In the 1970s, Beswick moved to Hollywood and regularly appeared on both the big and small screens. She made numerous guest appearances on television series, including Sledge Hammer!, Fantasy Island, The Fall Guy, Mannix, The Six Million Dollar Man and Falcon Crest. In 1980, she played the lead role in the comedy film The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood.

Beswick's career was active well into the 1990s. Since then, she has mainly participated in film documentaries, providing commentary and relating her experiences on the many films in which she has appeared. She owned a removals business in London, but is now semiretired except for her guest appearances at international Bond conventions.

In April 2013, she was one of 12 Bond Girl celebrity guests in an episode of the BBC's Masterchef.

Beginning with Melvin and Howard (1980), she changed the spelling of her last name to "Beswicke", but reverted to her original name in the mid-1990s; her last credit with the longer spelling is Wide Sargasso Sea (1993).

After a 24 year absence from the screen, Beswick came out of retirement in 2018 to appear in House of the Gorgon opposite fellow Hammer film actors Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson, and Christopher Neame.

Filmography

Film
Year Title Role
1963From Russia with Love Zora
1964Saturday Night Out Barmaid
1965Thunderball Paula Caplan
1966One Million Years B.C. Nupondi
1967John the Bastard Dona Antonia
1967Prehistoric Women Queen Kari
1967The Penthouse Harry
1967A Bullet for the General Adelita
1971Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde Sister Hyde
1973Ultimo tango a Zagarol The girl
1974Seizure Queen of Evil
1974The Kiss
1976Short Ends
1978Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell Red Haired Lady
1980The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood Xaviera Hollander
1980Melvin and Howard Realty Agent
1987Cyclone Waters
1987From a Whisper to a Scream Katherine White
1990Miami Blues Waitress
1990Evil Spirits Vanya
1991Critters 4 Angela (voice role)
1991Trancers II Nurse Trotter
1992Life on the Edge Linda James
1993Wide Sargasso Sea Aunt Cora
1995Night of the Scarecrow Barbara
2019 House of the Gorgon Euryale

Television
Year Title
1965Danger Man
1967The Solarnauts
1969It Takes a Thief
1970Mannix
1971Longstreet
1971Night Gallery
1975Strange New World
1975Switch
1976City of Angels
1976The Six Million Dollar Man
1977Baretta
1977Aspen
1980Hart to Hart
1981Quincy, M.E.
1982The Fall Guy
1983The Powers of Matthew Star
1984Fantasy Island
1984Days of Our Lives
1985Cover Up
1985Falcon Crest
1987Sledge Hammer!
gollark: It's obviously named after the Ben who used to be at my school and now works at GSK.
gollark: This clearly demonstrates why you're wrong.
gollark: That isn't even a solution. You're just bad.
gollark: The correct method is to just restate whatever they said in an ambiguously sarcastic way.
gollark: This is a bad method.

References
  1. Lisanti, Tom; Paul, Louis (2002). Film Fatales: Women in Espionage Films and Television, 1962–1973. McFarland. pp. 60+61. ISBN 9780786411948. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  2. Cotter, Robert Michael Bobb (2013). The Women of Hammer Horror: A Biographical Dictionary and Filmography. McFarland. pp. 23–25. ISBN 9781476602011. Retrieved 2 December 2016.
  3. Duncan, Paul (2012). The James Bond Archives: Fifty Years of Bond, James Bond (40th ed.). Köln: Taschen. ISBN 978-3836521055.
  4. CORK, JOHN (1 January 2007). JAMES BOND ENCYCLOPEDIA. DORLING KINDERSLEY. p. 138. ISBN 1405334274.
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