It’s been almost 60 years since Sean Connery’s fourth James Bond movie Thunderball hit cinemas.
One of the original 007 star’s Bond girls this time around was Italian actress Luciana Paluzzi, who also appeared in the original No Time To Die, a 1958 war movie.
Originally she auditioned for the lead Domino, which went to Claudine Auger, but she so impressed producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman that they made her the villainous SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe.
Now 86, Paluzzi gave a recent interview in the new book Movies Go Fourth by Mark Edlitz, author of The Lost Adventures of James Bond and The Many Lives of James Bond.
Looking back on the fourth 007 movie, Paluzzi spoke of her memorable introduction in Thunderball on a bed before confessing a big problem she has with Daniel Craig’s Bond.
Paluzzi said: “It was a great introduction. The movie was made many years ago and many films from that time seem old-fashioned. But Terence [Young, director of Thunderball] knew how to create great moments so that it still feels fresh and new.
“I think Terence really was James Bond. He was the one who injected all those moments of humour.”
“One of the things that I wasn’t crazy about when Daniel Craig first started playing James Bond was that he was so serious, so intense. Always with the long face. His Bond originally didn’t seem to have much of a sense of humour and slowly that has changed.”
Paluzzi added: “But I think that that could be the fault of the director because the director could come up to you and say, put a little twinkle in your eye as you said this line. But Terence was the one with all the right touches.
“As you say, the introduction was terrific. He had this great idea of filling the screen with my red hair.”
Mark Edlitz’s Movies Go Fourth: 4th Films in Fantastic Franchise is out now.
