What distinguishes a father from his son? I mean, really divides? The older gentleman's acceptance of casual racism in the workplace? Certainly. The shoes you wear to play tennis?
Very possibly. Or how about the fact you read all the weekend broadsheets on a shiny tablet, while your father's fingers will forever be smudged with print ink on a Sunday? Well, all these things I expect. But there's one indicator of the generational divide that's more significant than most, a chasm that will always run as deep as Blofeld's facial scar: Bond girls. Or more specifically, which Bond girl is the sexiest of all time,* and who's got the best (read: silliest) name.**
It's a prototypical debate, a fixture that's nearly as traditional as a Sunday roast - or certainly it was around GQ's family hearth. Owing to both Bond's universal appeal and his astonishing longevity (he reaches his 50th anniversary on film this year), which of his female companions/acquaintances/assassins makes for the best cinematic experience for us guys will always be a point of contention between different generations (as will which actor makes the most outstanding Bond***).
The mercurial Solitaire (Jane Seymour) from Live And Let Die? The bug-eyed and vengeful Major Anya Amasova (Barbara Bach) in The Spy Who Loved Me? Grace Jones' genuinely terrifying May Day from an otherwise flat A View To A Kill? You can make a stand-up case for every sizzling, innuendo-peppered performance.
Top in most polls, however, is almost invariably Ursula Andress' Honey Ryder in the 1962 film of Dr No, sashaying out of the ocean in that white bikini, carrying conch shells, and drawing her knife when she sees Bond. Although not the first Bond girl Ian Fleming conjured (that honour goes to Vesper Lynd from Casino Royale, her name a pun on West Berlin), Ryder, both in the movie and the novel, displays characteristics that chime with many of the previous, and subsequent, Bond girls. Of course, every one of them is beautiful (the majority, perhaps surprisingly, brunette) but these women also have an inner turmoil, usually a distrust of Bond at first, and a fierce independence. Frequently all of this is the consequence of some misogynistic attack that befell them in the past. Honey Ryder, we find out, was orphaned when she was a child, and raped as a teenager. In the movie, she tells 007 how she had her revenge on her attacker by putting a black widow spider under his mosquito net. It's these deadly acts that make all Bond's girls so appealing to men.
In a sense, Honor Blackman in Goldfinger, who is memorable for her wonderful moniker, Pussy Galore, and a deep timbre in her voice that could disarm any man of his Walther PPK, is a typical Bond girl. She starts off as an arch-criminal (many Bond girls work for Blofeld or some other bald, penny-collar wearing, cat-stroking megalomaniac with ambitions beyond his own lair) although she's inevitably seduced by 007's wit, switches allegiances, is saved from certain death by the famous MI6 agent and ultimately ends the movie making love under a parachute. It's also worth noting that Galore, prior to meeting Bond, is (in the book at least) a lesbian - such is the power of his seduction.
There are other superb Bond girls worth mentioning, such as the eye-wateringly shapely Jill St John, who played the red-haired Tiffany Case in *Diamonds Are Forever. * A few of them turn out (after a quick fling with Bond, naturally) to be just plain evil - think of Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera) in Never Say Never Again, the fantastically named Xenia Onatopp (Famke Janssen) in *GoldenEye * who crushes her prey between her thighs, or the greedy yet beautiful Elektra King (Sophie Marceau) in The World Is Not Enough.
Vesper Lynd (Eva Green) ensnared Bond's heart in the 2006 version of Casino Royale so well that, before she meets a soggy end in an elevator, he quits MI6 for the quiet life.
However, famously, only one Bond girl went on to actually marry him: Tracy Di Vicenzo (Diana Rigg), the ceremony taking part at the end of On Her Majesty's Secret Service. Of course, there was no time for a honeymoon; Tracy Bond is gunned down on her wedding day.
So who's left? Miss Moneypenny? Without a romantic liaison, M's secretary can't officially be named as a Bond girl proper. No, ultimately, James is destined to be alone: the girls will come and go, along with the gadgets, the super-villains and the threats to world peace.
Ah well, James. To paraphrase Sean Connery's Bond, while he unzips SPECTRE Agent Number 11 Helga Brandt's dress in You Only Live Twice: "The things you do for England."
** Sophie Marceau, "Elektra King" in The World Is Not Enough.*
**Plenty O'Toole.
***Roger Moore. For the humour. And the safari suits. Seriously.
Originally published in the August 2012 issue of British GQ.
