Barbara Bach

Barbara Bach, Lady Starkey (born Barbara Goldbach; August 27, 1946 or 1947) is an American actress and former model. She played the Bond girl Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me. She is married to former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr.
Early life
Bach is a native of Jackson Heights, Queens and was raised Roman Catholic. She graduated from Dominican Commercial High School, an all-girls school, in 1964. The following year, she shortened her surname to Bach and began modeling professionally, appearing in catalogs and fashion magazines.
Career
Bach was one of the most sought-after faces of the 1960s, working with the Eileen Ford Agency in New York, appearing on catalogs and the front covers of several international fashion magazines such as Seventeen (1965 and 1966), Vogue USA (July 1966) photographed by Richard Avedon, ELLE France (1966), Gioia Italy (1967–1970), and Figurino Brazil (1970).
Her acting career started in Italy, where she played Nausicaa in L'Odissea in 1968, an eight-hour long TV adaptation of Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, directed by Franco Rossi and produced by Dino de Laurentiis.
In 1971, Bach co-starred with two other Bond girls, Claudine Auger and Barbara Bouchet, in the mystery Black Belly of the Tarantula (a giallo film) and appeared in other Italian films.
In 1977, Bach portrayed the Russian spy Anya Amasova in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Bach remarked after the film that Bond is "a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets." The following year she appeared in the movie Force 10 from Navarone. She lost a role to actress Shelley Hack when she auditioned for season four of the television series Charlie's Angels. During an interview with Johnny Carson on May 9, 1979, she said that she lost the audition for Charlie's Angels because they felt she was too sophisticated in attitude and look, and thought that she was not American, even though she was born in Rosedale and grew up in Jackson Heights, both in Queens, New York City. They asked her manager if she could play an American.
Bach has 28 films to her credit. She was featured in a pictorial in Playboy in January 1981. She also had a cameo in a September 1987 special issue on the Bond girls.
Charity work
In 1991, Bach co-founded the Self Help Addiction Recovery Program (SHARP) with Pattie Boyd, the former wife of George Harrison and Eric Clapton, both of whom assisted in the venture. Bach and Ringo Starr created The Lotus Foundation, a charity with many sub-charities.
Personal life
Bach's first marriage was to Italian businessman Augusto, Count Gregorini di Savignano di Romagna. The couple had two children together, daughter Francesca and son Gianni, before divorcing in 1975. Bach married British musician Ringo Starr, formerly of the Beatles, at Marylebone Town Hall on April 27, 1981. The two met in 1980, on the set of the film Caveman (1981).
Bach struggled with alcoholism and heavy drug use and, along with her husband, Ringo Starr, checked into a rehab in 1988 for four weeks. The couple has remained sober ever since.
According to the International Vegetarian Union, Bach and Starr practice vegetarianism.
She is fluent in Italian and has a working knowledge of French and Spanish.
Filmography
References
External links
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20th-century American actresses
Actresses from New York City
American expatriates in Italy
American expatriates in England
American film actresses
American people of Austrian-Jewish descent
American people of Irish descent
Female models from New York (state)
Countesses in Italy
Living people
People from Jackson Heights, Queens
People from Rosedale, Queens
Queens College, City University of New York alumni
Ringo Starr family
Ringo Starr
Wives of the Beatles
Wives of knights
1946 births