Ursula Andress

Ursula Andress (born 19 March 1936) is a Swiss actress and former model who has appeared in American, British and Italian films. Her breakthrough role was as Bond girl Honey Ryder in the first James Bond film, Dr. No (1962). She later starred as Vesper Lynd in the 1967 Bond parody Casino Royale. Other credits include Fun in Acapulco (1963), 4 for Texas (1963), She (1965), The 10th Victim (1965), The Blue Max (1966), The Southern Star (1969), Perfect Friday (1970), Red Sun (1971), The Sensuous Nurse (1975), Slave of the Cannibal God (1978), The Fifth Musketeer (1979), Clash of the Titans (1981), and Peter the Great (1986).
== Early life==
Ursula Andress, the third of six children, was born on 19 March 1936 in Ostermundigen, Canton of Bern, to a Swiss mother, Anna, and Rolf Andress, a German diplomat. Her father was expelled from Switzerland for political reasons and her grandfather, a garden designer, took the role of being her guardian. She has a brother, Heinz, and four sisters, Erika, Charlotte, Gisela, and Kàtey.
Andress went to school in Bern until she was 16 and speaks several languages, including English, French, German, and Italian. She studied art in Paris for a year, then went to Rome, where she held down jobs including being a children’s nanny.
==Career==
Andress was at a party when she met a film producer who offered her a screen test for a role in an Italian film. She was successful and was cast in walk-on parts in An American in Rome (1954) (starring Alberto Sordi), The Sins of Casanova (1955) (starring later Bond ally Gabriele Ferzetti), and La catena dell'odio (1955). She was seen by a Hollywood executive who persuaded her to try her luck in Hollywood.
Andress arrived in Hollywood in late 1955. That spring she was signed to a seven-year contract with Paramount Pictures, starting at $287 a week. 
The contract brought no acting roles, owing to her reluctance to learn English.James Bacon (22 June 1977). Ursula Andress Lonely, Living Like a Saint. Sarasota Journal. "I spent most of my time watching old Marlene Dietrich movies", she said. Andress received some publicity for dating James Dean shortly before the actor's death. She bought herself out of her contract and in 1956 signed with Columbia Pictures. She made no films for them either. She stayed in Hollywood when she married John Derek in 1957. In 1959, it was announced she and Derek would star in a film, High Variety, but no film resulted. 
Andress returned to acting in 1962 in an episode of Thriller, "La Strega" (1962), with Alejandro Rey. She became internationally famous as Honey Ryder, a shell diver and James Bond's object of desire in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond film, even though her dialogue had to be dubbed by Nikki van der Zyl. In what became an iconic moment in cinematic and fashion history, she rose out of the Caribbean Sea in a white bikini sporting a large diving knife on her hip. The calypso was sung by Diana Coupland.Actress Diana Coupland dies at 74 (10 November 2006). BBC News. Accessed 16 February 2008. The scene made Andress a "quintessential" Bond girl. Andress later said that she owed her career to that white bikini: "This bikini made me into a success. As a result of starring in Dr. No as the first Bond girl, I was given the freedom to take my pick of future roles and to become financially independent". The bikini she wore in the film sold at auction in 2001 for £41,125.Christie's Auction Result (14 February 2001). Christie's Auction. Accessed 16 June 2012.. In 2003, in a UK Survey by Channel 4, her entrance in Dr. No was voted #1 in "the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments". Andress won the Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year in 1964 for her appearance in the film.Ursula Andress . GoldenGlobes.org. Accessed 18 February 2008.
Andress followed it playing the female lead in an Elvis Presley musical, Fun in Acapulco (1963). She was billed after Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Anita Ekberg in 4 for Texas (1963); her casting in the latter led to the title being changed from Two for Texas. Both films were widely seen. Less so was a film Andress starred in alongside Derek, Nightmare in the Sun (1965).
In 1965, nude photographs of her from Nightmare in the Sun were published in Playboy; it was the first of seven times she was pictured in the magazine over the next fifteen years.Ursula Andress Playboy.co.uk. When asked why she had agreed to do the Playboy shoot, Andress replied coolly, "Because I'm beautiful".
Andress was cast in the title role of She (1965), playing an immortal queen, for Hammer Films and Seven Arts Productions, shot in England and Israel. Andress agreed to make it as part of a two-picture deal with Seven Arts; it was a financial success at the box office. Andress did not appear in the sequel, The Vengeance of She, as her contract expired before the film was produced.Tom Johnson and Deborah Del Vecchio, Hammer Films: An Exhaustive Filmography, McFarland, 1996. pp. 292–294
Andress had a supporting role in the comedy What's New Pussycat? (1965) for producer Charles K. Feldman which was a huge hit. She went to France to play Jean-Paul Belmondo's love interest in Up to His Ears (1965), which was popular in France; she and Belmondo became romantically involved, leading to her and Derek divorcing (although they had already been separated for a year). Andress moved to Paris to live with Belmondo and it was her home for the next seven years.
In Italy, she starred opposite Marcello Mastroianni in the science fiction movie The 10th Victim (1965). She returned to Hollywood to play George Peppard's love interest in the World War One film The Blue Max (1966), another success at the box office."Big Rental Pictures of 1966". Variety, 4 January 1967, p. 8.
Andress made her second film for Seven Arts: another with Derek, who again starred and directed, Once Before I Die (1966), shot in the Philippines. More widely seen was the Bond satire Casino Royale (1967), also produced by Feldman, where Andress played Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble, played by Peter Sellers, to carry out a mission. It was a big box office hit. Her fee was a reported £200,000. Val Guest directed Andress in Casino Royale and said "I don't think I have ever met someone who was so universally loved by everyone in a studio. They'd all do anything for her and this is really quite something. One day someone is going to get the real Ursula on the screen in a comedy and she's going to astound everybody. The trouble is that she's so tense".Licensed to kill the James Bond Image? London Life; London (17 December 1966): 12-14.
In Italy, she appeared alongside fellow former Bond girl Claudine Auger in Anyone Can Play (1968) for director Luigi Zampa. She then went to Africa to make The Southern Star (1969) with George Segal, which was a hit in England."The World's Top Twenty Films." Sunday Times [London] 27 September 1970: 27. The Sunday Times Digital Archive. accessed 5 April 2014 She appeared nude or semi-nude in nearly all of her film roles between 1969 and 1979, earning her the nickname "Ursula Undress".Dan Lewis (29 August 1972). 'Andress on Undress: Hollywood Overdoes It. Sarasota Journal. Accessed 18 March 2015.
Andress went to England to appear in Perfect Friday (1970), a heist film starring Stanley Baker and David Warner. In Spain. she appeared in Red Sun (1971), a Western with an international cast including Charles Bronson, Toshiro Mifune, and Alain Delon. In a 1972 interview, she said "I think my image, especially to Americans, is that of a femme fatale, a man-eating woman. I'm not empty-headed or calculating and cool. But maybe my looks give that impression. I'm disciplined in my doings and undisciplined in my emotions. I can't control the things I feel or hide my feelings".
Andress did some action films, Stateline Motel (1973), Loaded Guns (1975), and Africa Express (1975). She played the title role in The Sensuous Nurse (1975) and did a comedy with another former Bond girl, Barbara Bouchet, Spogliamoci così, senza pudor... (1976).
Andress played Joséphine de Beauharnais in the swashbuckling spoof The Loves and Times of Scaramouche (1976) with Michael Sarrazin. She made a sequel to Africa Express, Safari Express (1976), then did another with Mastroianni, Double Murder (1978).
Andress was in the cult favorite Slave of the Cannibal God (1978) with Stacy Keach; the anthology sex comedy Tigers in Lipstick (1979) for Luigi Zampa; and the swashbuckler period piece The Fifth Musketeer (1979), playing Louise de La Vallière opposite Beau Bridges.
She played Aphrodite in 1981's Clash of the Titans, alongside Laurence Olivier. During the making of the film, Andress started a romantic relationship with leading man Harry Hamlin, with whom she had a son.
In 1982, she portrayed Mabel Dodge in the adventure-drama film Red Bells and guest starred on shows like Manimal and The Love Boat. In France. she was in Liberté, égalité, choucroute (1985).
On television, she participated in the 1986 Emmy-winning miniseries Peter the Great, and joined the cast of the primetime soap opera Falcon Crest for a three-episode arc in 1988 as an exotic foreigner who assists David Selby in retrieving Dana Sparks from a white slave ring. Andress was also in Big Man – The Diva (1988) with Bud Spencer and Man Against the Mob: The Chinatown Murders (1989).
Since the beginning of the 1990s, her acting appearances have been rare. She was in Klassäzämekunft (1990) (English title: Broken Silence), The Cave of the Golden Rose 3 (1993), The Cave of the Golden Rose 4 (1994) and Cremaster 5 (1995). In 1995, Andress was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in film history." Her last role to date was playing "Madonna" in the low-budget 2005 Swiss feature Die Vogelpredigt oder Das Schreien der Mönche (English title: The Bird Preachers). She appeared in the documentary Masterpiece or Forgery? The Story of Elmyr De Hory (2008).
== Personal life ==
Andress has stated that she lost her virginity to married actor Daniel Gélin in 1953, when she was 17 and he was 32. She dated Dennis Hopper and James Dean after moving to the US in 1955, and that same year began an affair with actor/director John Derek, a married father of two who walked out on his wife, Pati Behrs, and their family to be with 19-year-old Andress. Derek and Andress wed on February 2, 1957, in Las Vegas, but separated in 1964 over her affair with Once Before I Die co-star Ron Ely, officially divorcing in 1966. During the interim, the separated but still married Andress publicly dated John Richardson, her co-star from She, and Marcello Mastroianni, her co-star from The 10th Victim."The Three Men in Ursula Andress' Life". Independent Star-News, 22 May 1966
From 1965 to 1972, Andress lived with her Up to His Ears co-star Jean-Paul Belmondo.Wilson, Earl (16 July 1972). It Happened Last Night. Sarasota Herald-Tribune. He was, she says, the love of her life."Kiss & Tell". New Straits Times. 1986-01-09. Her next live-in relationship was with another co-star, Stateline Motels Fabio Testi, from 1973 to 1977 (except for one year when they broke up).Scott, Walter (29 July 1973). "Personality Parade". The Orlando Sentinel. She also dated Ryan O'Neal, John Delorean, Helmut Berger, Paolo Pazzaglia, Johnny Dorelli, Franco Nero, with whom she later starred in Red Bells, Nels Van Patten, and Ricci Martin.
When Andress broke her arm in late summer 1978, the official story had it that she'd been struck by Hurricane Norman while bodysurfing in Malibu, but rumors flew that she actually suffered the injury during a fight with her on-again/off-again boyfriend O'Neal. O'Neal and Andress were in a relationship twice, first from 1972 to 1973, then again from 1977 to 1978.
Andress lived with actor Harry Hamlin after meeting on the set of Clash of the Titans in 1979. She gave birth to their son, Dimitri Alexander Hamlin, on 19 May 1980.Wallace, David (4 July 1983). 'I Want to Be with Him,' Says Ursula Andress, but Harry Hamlin Just Wants to Be on His Own. People. The night of her delivery, Linda Evans drove Andress to the hospital while Evans' assistant Bunky Young retrieved Hamlin from the set of King of the Mountain.Tipoff. Lakeland Ledger, 3 August 1980. Although she was engaged to Hamlin,Associated Press (1980-04-28). Ursula to wed after baby is born in May. The Free Lance–Star. the couple never married. In 1983, Hamlin broke up with her.Leonard, Vince (29 June 1983). Ursula, Hamlin Split. Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In the mid-1980s, Andress was romantically involved with soccer player Paulo Roberto Falcão, actor Gerardo Amato, singer Julio Iglesias, real estate developer Stan Herman, and bodybuilder Mario Natokis. In 1986, she began dating future Sicilian Regional Assembly member"47 arrested in Italian Mafia raids". United Press International, 3 November 2010. Fausto Fagone, then a university student; he was 20 and she was 50. The relationship, which infuriated Fagone's parents, lasted until 1991. Later that year, Andress briefly dated martial arts expert Jeff Speakman, but has not been publicly linked with anyone since.
In 2017, Andress sold her home in Beverly Hills at a considerable profit. She also has resided in Florida, Virginia, and Spain.McLeod, Mike (2003). "Ursula Andress, The first Bond girl collects many fine antiques". go-star.com. Southeastern Antiquing and Collecting Magazine. As of 2022, Andress splits her time between an apartment in Rome and a house in Gstaad, near her siblings. Her preferred language is Italian.
== Filmography ==
===Film===
Title	Year 	Role 	Notes
1954 	An American in Rome 	Astrid Sjöström 	Uncredited
1955 	Sins of Casanova 	Passenger 	
1955 	La catena dell'odio 	Extra 	
1962 	Dr. No 	Honey Ryder 	Golden Globe Award for New Star of the Year
1963 	Fun in Acapulco 	Marguerita Dauphin 	
1963 	4 for Texas 	Maxine Richter 	
1965 	Nightmare in the Sun 	Marsha Wilson 	
1965 	She 	Ayesha 	
1965 	What's New Pussycat? 	Rita 	
1965 	Up to His Ears 	Alexandrine Pinardel 	
1965 	The 10th Victim 	Caroline Meredith 	
1966 	The Blue Max 	Countess Kaeti von Klugermann	
1966 	Once Before I Die 	Alex 	
1967 	Casino Royale 	Vesper Lynd 	
1968 	Anyone Can Play 	Norma 	
1969 	The Southern Star 	Erica Kramer 	
1970 	Perfect Friday 	Lady Britt Dorset 	
1971 	Red Sun 	Cristina 	
1973 	Stateline Motel 	Michelle Nolton 	
1975 	Loaded Guns 	Nora Green 	
1975 	Africa Express 	Madeleine Cooper 	
1975 	The Sensuous Nurse 	Anna 	
1976 	The Loves and Times of Scaramouche	Joséphine de Beauharnais 	
1976 	Safari Express 	Miriam 	
1976 	Sex with a Smile II 	Marina 	
1978 	Double Murder 	Princiess Dell'Orso 	
1978 	Slave of the Cannibal God 	Susan Stevenson 	
1979 	Tigers in Lipstick 	The Stroller / The Widow 	
1979 	The Fifth Musketeer 	Louise de La Vallière 	
1981 	Clash of the Titans 	Aphrodite 	
1982 	Red Bells 	Mabel Dodge 	
1985 	Liberté, égalité, choucroute 	Marie Antoinette 	
1988 	Broken Silence 	Agnes 	
1989 	Trouble in the City of Angels 	Betty Starr 	
1993 	The Cave of the Golden Rose 3 	Xellesia 	
1994 	The Cave of the Golden Rose 4 	Xellesia 	
1996 	Alles gelogen 	Main role 	
1997 	Cremaster 5 	Queen of Chain 	
2005 	St. Francis Birds Tour 	Madonna 	
===Television===
Title	Year 	Role 	Notes
1962 	Thriller 	Luana 	Episode: "La Strega"
1983 	Manimal 	Karen Jade 	Episode: "Manimal"
1983 	The Love Boat 	Carole Stanton	2 episodes
1986 	Peter the Great 	Athalie 	4 episodes
1988 	Falcon Crest 	Madame Malec 	3 episodes
1988 	Big Man 	Susy Kaminski 	Episode: "The Diva"
1991 	Ti ho adottato per simpatia	 	TV film
== References ==
== External links ==
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Category:1936 births
Category:Living people
Category:People from Bern-Mittelland District
Category:People from Ostermundigen
Category:Swiss female models
Category:Swiss people of German descent
Category:Swiss-German people
Category:Swiss film actresses
Category:Swiss television actresses
Category:20th-century Swiss actresses
Category:21st-century Swiss actresses
Category:New Star of the Year (Actress) Golden Globe winners