Martine Beswick

Martine Beswick (born 26 September 1941) is Jamaica-born British actress and model perhaps best known for her roles in two James Bond films, From Russia with Love (1963) and Thunderball (1965), who went on to appear in several other notable films in the 1960s. In 2019, she was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame. 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. Beswick is best known for her two appearances in the James Bond film series. Although she auditioned for the first Bond film Dr. No (1962), she was cast in the second film From Russia with Love (1963) as the fiery gypsy girl, Zora. She engaged in a "catfight" scene with her rival Vida (played by former Miss Israel Aliza Gur). Beswick later stated that there was as much bad feeling with Gur offscreen as well as on, with the film's director, Terence Young, encouraging Beswick to get rough with Gur.