A half-century of Bond Girls

It's almost hard to believe that it's been 50 years since Sean Connery played James Bond for the first time, that being in the film Doctor No. Not only did its popularity spawn a whole series of Bond films, the scene of Ursula Andress coming out of the sea spawned a series of sexy women to play opposite the various James Bonds.

Andress is now 76 and looking very good for a woman of that age: a recent article from the UK tabloid the Daily Mail includes then and now photos for several of the Bond girls, all of whom seem to have aged fairly well. Then again, there are a couple of caveats: the article doesn't say just how current the "now" photos are, although I suppose they can't be too old. The other, of course, is the possibility that one or another of them had plastic surgery. Still, even somebody like Honor Blackman looks quite distinguished for a woman well into her 80s.

As for some of the Bond girls, I have other memories of them, especially Karin Dor; when I think of her I think of Alfred Hitchcock's Topaz, in which she has a visually interesting death scene. And I don't think Grace Jones (from A View To a Kill, turning 64 later this year) shows up in the photo spread. Wikipedia has a photo of Jones performing in 2009 in which she doesn't look too bad, except for the think on the top of her head that's part of the costume.