Martine Beswick (born 26 September 1941) is an English actress and model, best known for her roles in two James Bond films.

Early years

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

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.

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. Beswick then appeared as the ill-fated Paula Caplan in Thunderball. 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 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 star in House of the Gorgon opposite fellow Hammer film stars Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson, and Christopher Neame.

Filmography

Film

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

Television

Year	Title
1965	Danger Man
1967	The Solarnauts
1969	It Takes a Thief
1970	Mannix
1971	Longstreet
1975	Strange New World
1975	Switch
1976	City of Angels
1976	The Six Million Dollar Man
1977	Baretta
1977	Aspen
1980	Hart to Hart
1981	Quincy, M.E.
1982	The Fall Guy
1983	The Powers of Matthew Star
1984	Fantasy Island
1984	Days of Our Lives
1985	Cover Up
1985	Falcon Crest
1987	Sledge Hammer!