Friday, June 15, 2012

Of Bond Girls and Angels

Jaclyn Smith, Lois Chiles, Barbara Bach,
Shelley Hack and Tanya Roberts

Jaclyn Smith was the first choice for Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker. She declined the role due to scheduling conflicts with Charlie's Angels and probably due to the suggestive name of the character. Shelley Hack along with Susan Reed, Cyrielle Besnard and Sylvia Krystel were then considered for the role. Shelley, who may have even been the leading contender at the time, agreed to a screen test. But an airline flight took casting in a different direction. Lois Chiles and Bond director, Lewis Gilbert, chanced upon each other in flight and Chiles (who looks like a brunette Shelley Hack) won the role. Interestingly enough, two years earlier, Gilbert's original choice for Agent Triple X Anya Amasova in another Bond film The Spy Who  Loved Me (1977) was actually Chiles, who turned it down. The role eventually went to Barbara Bach. In 1979, Barbara Bach was a leading contender in the search for Charlie's newest Angel but was passed over because, among others, she looked too much like Jaclyn Smith. Shelley Hack eventually won the Angel role. Confused...?

Well, for the record, the only Charlie's Angel to become a Bond Girl is Tanya Roberts who played Stacey Sutton in A View To A Kill in 1985.