The “Bond girl” is one of the most problematic tropes of the James Bond franchise. It ensures that almost all the female characters in Bond’s adventures have been one-dimensional, hypersexualized, and interchangeable. But, from Ursula Andress to Honor Blackman, some actors have made these one-note roles iconic.
Throughout Roger Moore’s seven Bond films, plenty of renowned stars gave memorable turns as 007’s love interests and femme fatales, from Gloria Hendry to Carole Bouquet to Barbara Bach. Some of Moore’s co-stars gave stronger performances than others.
Lynn-Holly Johnson As Bibi Dahl
The secondary Bond girl in For Your Eyes Only is one of the wackiest characters from the Moore era. Bibi Dahl is an ice-skating prodigy with a crush on Bond.
Lynn-Holly Johnson is a real-life ice skater, not an actor, so her performance doesn’t stick the landing with the goofy material. Her line readings are too hammy and her romantic scenes with 007 play like something out of an awkward high school movie.
Britt Ekland As Mary Goodnight
Britt Ekland gave memorable performances in the classic crime thriller The Wicker Man, but she didn’t have a lot to work with when she was cast as Bond girl and fellow British agent Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun.
She’s a one-dimensional character described by the Sunday Mirror’s review as “astoundingly stupid,” and she spends the entire third-act battle sequence in a bikini. Ekland’s talents as an actor didn’t get a chance to shine.
Tanya Roberts As Stacey Sutton
The villain in A View to a Kill, Christopher Walken’s Max Zorin, isn’t an evil genius bent on world domination. He’s a cold, calculating business tycoon who wants to wipe out Silicon Valley to monopolize the microchip industry. The main love interest, Stacey Sutton, is the granddaughter of an oil tycoon whose company was absorbed by Zorin.
This setup didn’t give Tanya Roberts a lot to work with – and it didn’t help that the movie as a whole was panned as the final nail in the Moore era’s coffin – but she gives a likable enough turn to get by.
Jane Seymour As Solitaire
Jane Seymour’s performance as Bond’s love interest Solitaire in Live and Let Die was initially met with mixed reviews, but her turn has been reappraised as one of the most likable Bond girls in more recent retrospective analysis of the film.
Solitaire is a psychic working for the villainous Kananga. She fills the traditional role of the romantic interest, but being a psychic also makes her delightfully kooky, and Seymour leans into the character’s eccentricity.
Maud Adams As Octopussy
After previously playing a different ing character in The Man with the Golden Gun, Maud Adams reteamed with Eon to play the titular villain-turned-ally in Octopussy.
Adams’ performance as Octopussy, much like the movie itself, divided critics. Some call her one of the best Bond girls; others call her one of the worst. Love it or hate it, Adams’ portrayal of the character is certainly memorable.
Grace Jones As May Day
A View to a Kill offers one of the rare cases in which a secondary Bond girl is much more interesting and well-developed than the primary Bond girl. May Day isn’t initially Bond’s love interest; she’s Zorin’s love interest and also his top henchwoman.
While she’s more renowned for her music and modeling than her acting, Grace Jones gave a suitably badass performance as May Day in A View to a Kill.
Lois Chiles As Holly Goodhead
James Bond fans had been suspending their disbelief from the beginning, but 007’s jaunt into the cosmos in Moonraker went a step too far for many viewers. The whole thing culminates in a big laser battle in the empty void of space.
Holly Goodhead might have one of the most on-the-nose Bond girl pun names, but Lois Chiles’ surprisingly down-to-earth performance is one of the baffling spacefaring adventure’s few saving graces.
Gloria Hendry As Rosie Carver
Moore’s first Bond movie, Live and Let Die, is notable for featuring the franchise’s first Black Bond girl. Rosie Carver is a CIA agent who teams up with Bond in San Monique. A traditional femme fatale, she turns out to be a double agent working for the villainous Kananga.
The tone of Live and Let Die was heavily influenced by then-prominent blaxploitation movies, and Gloria Hendry’s turn as Rosie shares the badass qualities of Pam Grier’s groundbreaking blaxploitation heroes.
Carole Bouquet As Melina Havelock
After Moonraker took Bond to space and divided the fan base, For Your Eyes Only took the series back to its more grounded roots for a refreshingly gritty revenge thriller. 007 goes after a traditional megalomaniac, but his love interest Melina Havelock is motivated by a personal vendetta.
Carole Bouquet gives a fierce performance as Melina in her quest for vengeance. Her brutal, narrow-minded pursuit of her parents’ assassin shocks even Bond himself.
Barbara Bach As Anya Amasova
It’s rare that the romantic subplot of a Bond movie has real dramatic depth that allows the actors to play around with complex emotions. But in The Spy Who Loved Me, the Bond girl who teams up with 007 – Soviet KGB agent XXX, Anya Amasova – happens to be the grieving lover of one of his latest targets.
Usually, Bond’s love interests fall for him right off the bat, but Amasova has to get over the hurdle of her vengeful rage against 007 for killing the love of her life. Barbara Bach does a terrific job with this emotional journey (even if the sentimental ending feels unearned).
