The only ‘Bond girl’ who refused to promote their role: “They were quite pissed off”

The James Bond franchise has been a well-oiled publicity machine for over 60 years, with each new adventure for cinema’s marquee secret agent packaged, sold, and marketed to within an inch of its life.

These days, brands are happy to hand over a small fortune in cash to have their products displayed prominently onscreen whether they’re being used by 007 or not, with every major announcement treated like an event in its own right, even if people weren’t too keen on the idea of Daniel Craig when he was first paraded in front of the world after arriving at a press conference via speedboat.

Every performer who plays a notable role is deployed to every corner of the world to promote and hype their contributions to the storied series, but what happens if they say no? In the short term, it invariably angers the top brass and decision-makers. In the long run, though, the actor who tried to distance themselves from Bond to avoid typecasting admitted it didn’t really work out that way.

Even though her screentime was minimal in the grand scheme of things, Margaret Nolan is an indelible part of 007 history. She played Sean Connery’s masseuse, Dink, in 1964’s Goldfinger, and it was her gold-painted body that was used in the marketing, despite Shirley Eaton’s Jill Masterson getting that distinction in the movie.

The opening credits, which featured footage projected onto a woman’s body, also belonged to Nolan. For her troubles, the producers of Goldfinger offered her a two-year promotional deal, which probably involved a lot of being painted gold in various places to drum up additional buzz to capitalise on the iconography, but she turned them down.

“So they were quite pissed off because they’d already spent loads of money on me,” she admitted to Den of Geek. “It was because of what was going on politically at the time, and I wanted to do more serious stuff and be taken as a serious actress. Also, my husband didn’t want me to go away for two years as well; it meant touring the world.

Given how many ‘Bond girls’ have struggled in the aftermath of their 007-focused escapades, it made sense for Nolan to try and avoid being permanently associated with the franchise to build a career for herself outside of being painted head-to-toe. In hindsight, it didn’t go according to plan.

“So I turned it down, and it was so funny because, as I say, I’ve never been able to live it down anyway,” she admitted. “In a way, I might as well have just done it.” Guaranteed and decently paid work for two years is a hard thing to turn down, but Nolan stuck to her guns and refused to let herself or her plans be overshadowed by Goldfinger, regardless of how she felt in hindsight.