Molly Peters (15 March 1939 – 30 May 2017), born Vivien Mollie Rudderham, was an English actress and model best known for her role as

Bond girl A Bond girl is a character who is a love interest or female companion of James Bond in a novel, film or video game. Bond girls occasionally have names that are double entendres or puns, such as Pussy Galore, Plenty O'Toole, Xenia Onatopp, o ...

Patricia Fearing in the James Bond film '' Thunderball''.

Career

Molly Peters started out as a model and was discovered by film director Terence Young. She appeared in several films during the 1960s. Her best-known appearance was the role of

, Patricia Fearing or Pat, a nurse who takes care of

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

( Sean Connery) while he is on holiday at her health clinic in '' Thunderball'' (1965). Peters was the first Bond girl to be seen taking her clothes off on screen in the Bond series. Peters appeared in ''

Playboy ''Playboy'' is an American men's Lifestyle magazine, lifestyle and entertainment magazine, formerly in print and currently online. It was founded in Chicago in 1953, by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from H ...

'', in the November 1965 issue. Her appearance was as part of a pictorial essay titled "James Bond's Girls", by

Richard Maibaum Richard Maibaum (May 26, 1909 – January 4, 1991) was an American film producer, playwright and screenwriter best known for his screenplay adaptations of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels. Among his works are the first anti-lynching play on Bro ...

. According to the special edition DVD of ''Thunderball'', Peters' short film career was the result of a disagreement between her and her agent. The specifics of the disagreement were not revealed, other than according to Peters, her agent at the time of ''Thunderball'' held her to her contract agreement of representation because of the mega-successful box-office hit of the fourth James Bond film in 1965. It was only many years later, when the fame, the glamour and the chaos from the release of ''Thunderball'' had faded, that her contractual agreement ended; and so had any modelling and/or film prospects.

Personal life

When she was young, she gave birth to a daughter, whom she gave up for adoption. Peters later married and lived with her husband in

Ipswich Ipswich () is a port town and borough in Suffolk, England, of which it is the county town. The town is located in East Anglia about away from the mouth of the River Orwell and the North Sea. Ipswich is both on the Great Eastern Main Line ...

, Suffolk. She and her husband had a son, who has since died. In 2011, Peters suffered a mild stroke.

Death

Peters died on 29 May 2017, at the age of 78 at Taunton Hospital, Somerset.

Filmography

Films

Television

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Peters, Molly 1939 births 2017 deaths English film actresses People from Walsham-le-Willows 20th-century English actresses English television actresses