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Times
08-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Times
What does it take to be a Bond girl in 2025?
Anyone who knows anything about James Bond will be familiar with Honey Ryder, who in the 1962 film Dr No emerged from the Caribbean sea wearing nothing but an ivory bikini and a diving knife. 'Stay where you are!' she calls out across the golden beach, having spotted the handsome spy stepping out from behind a palm tree. 'I can assure you,' he answers, hands raised in surrender, 'my intentions are strictly honourable.' From that moment on the women populating Ian Fleming's fictional universe have become almost as iconic as 007 himself (whose intentions, it turned out, were not always as respectable as he claimed). That's why, as the world debates the merits of Denis Villeneuve as the next director and the Peaky Blinders creator, Steven Knight, as the next writer, along with which actor will step into the polished brogues of Daniel Craig, I am wondering who the next Bond girl will be. What are the ingredients that go into a good one? Are they action heroines or simply bimbos? Is the ability to wade out of the ocean looking glamorous still vital (Halle Berry certainly did a stellar job in Die Another Day), or have things changed in the six decades since the Swiss actress Ursula Andress stunned us with that first sodden appearance? While awaiting casting news, I decide to find out. My plan is to go Method, but like any good secret agent I begin with a spot of desk-based intelligence gathering. Bond girls sit on a spectrum of ally to enemy, I'm reminded as I wade my way through the 25 films, although they do always have some kind of dalliance with 007. They vary greatly in their appearance too, but statistically speaking a Bond girl is likely to be brown-haired, blue-eyed and roughly ten years younger than Bond, a man perennially in his late thirties (though there have been whispers that, with Barbara Broccoli out of the picture, it may be possible for a woman to play the lead). When she filmed Live and Let Die Jane Seymour was 22. In Casino Royale Eva Green was 26. Carey Lowell and Denise Richards were both 28 in their respective films. The oldest Bond girl is Monica Bellucci, who was 50 when she appeared in Spectre. Conveniently, at 24, I'm bang on target. Hoping for concrete advice on the skills required for the job, I give a couple of the world's most beloved Bond girls a call, starting with Britt Ekland, the Swedish actress who starred as Mary Goodnight in 1974's The Man with the Golden Gun. 'They're not called girls any more,' she says. 'They're called women, which is fine, but 'Have you seen the latest Bond woman?' doesn't sound as good as 'Have you seen the latest Bond girl?' There's a difference.' • Britt Ekland: 'I had so much fun after Rod Stewart. It was saucy' For Ekland, 82, the essence of the role has remained constant: an effortless blend of beauty and brawn. 'She should be attractive,' she says, 'chosen for her natural beauty. And she should be athletic. I think that's very important because the role generally involves running, jumping, a little bit of fighting. It involves moving your body.' Does the Bond girl have to climb into bed with the hairy-chested hero? Not necessarily. 'One assumes that he slept with me on the boat sailing away,' she says of the film's ending, when Bond and Goodnight make a swift getaway on Scaramanga's yacht. 'But the assumption is always much more exciting than thinking through the act, if you know what I mean. That's what makes the whole thing so attractive.' Seduction in both directions is, of course, a huge part of the franchise's draw — a James Bond film would be a Jason Bourne film if it weren't for all the product placement and bonking — but the skills required from a Bond girl have changed over more than 60 years and 70 iterations of the character. Although his female companions still have sex appeal, they are no longer limited to being convenient plot devices or punchlines. Film by film, Bond girls have become savvy, robust and independent. As in Fleming's original novels, recent incarnations are successful career women with impressive CVs. There's a French psychiatrist, a Georgian fighter pilot, an American nuclear physicist and a Czech cellist, to name just a few. I wonder whether an English journalist might be permitted temporarily to join their ranks. Having established that Bond girls of today must be more than one-night stands, my second call is to one of the rare Bond girls thought not to have slept with 007 (although the pair do share a passenger seat smooch). In 2008 the Ukrainian actress Olga Kurylenko stunned the world in Quantum of Solace as Camille Montes, a Bolivian sidekick who was every bit as tough as Bond. 'At that time I hadn't really done much,' she tells me. 'It was the beginning of my career. The first month was just prep. My character was so action-oriented in that film, pretty much equal to Bond, and they trained me so hard that afterwards I could do anything: stunt driving, stunt flying, stunt running, martial arts. 'I would come home and I would drop dead on the bed. I couldn't move. I was exhausted. But by the end of six months of filming I was so strong. I did things that I thought I could never do.' Kurylenko looked phenomenal, pacing barefoot through the desert in a black Prada dress, beside Craig, but agrees that beauty is definitely not all that's required. 'It's not just about the looks,' she says. 'What I see on Instagram is that girls are inspired to be as naked as they can be. 'A Bond girl doesn't take selfies. Her goal is thinking about strategy, about how she's going to complete her mission. A Bond girl is witty, she's smart. She has her own agenda, she has a serious occupation, and that's what makes her sexy. It's not enough to just have an attractive face or a body if it's an empty vessel.' • The best James Bond movies — ranked by 007 insiders If, as Kurylenko assures me, a modern Bond girl must be steely and well equipped — albeit susceptible to developing the odd crush — then any contender will need to learn the art of self-defence. At Fightzone, a popular martial arts centre in east London, I slip surreptitiously into the back of a busy Muay Thai class, where 40 people are silently thumping the air in front of them. The instructor, a world champion fighter named José, plucks me out and insists that I kick him in the stomach. Cautiously I tap his middle with the ball of my right foot. 'Try again!' he shouts, and I do, putting my weight into it. 'Lovely!' he yells, grinning. I notice he has a golden grill clipped around his front teeth, not entirely dissimilar from the Bond assassin Jaws. After 30 minutes of hitting and striking, my clothes are soaked through with sweat, but I am feeling as powerful as Wai Lin in Tomorrow Never Dies, a Chinese spy and military colonel (played by Michelle Yeoh) who takes out a gang of attackers like whack-a-mole. I head into the next-door class to try a different kind of combat, Brazilian jiu-jitsu, which is often recommended to women because it involves using your opponent's body weight against them, giving smaller, lighter people an advantage. My new instructor, a spritely Cypriot named Phidias, directs me to lie on my back and stick both my legs in the air — apparently a key position in the sport. I then find out that almost all the positions in jiu-jitsu are a kind of mount: full mount, side mount, back mount, and one that is called the anaconda choke. I worry that my Bond girl training is getting more authentic than I bargained for. • What's gone wrong with James Bond? No star, no script, no plan The next thing on my to-do list is learning how to safely (and seductively) fire a gun, so I retreat to a bunker-like office beneath the old headquarters of the London Scottish Regiment to chat with Ben Simmons, the founder of Bare Arms, a company that trains actors to use firearms convincingly. It has assisted on sets including Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, the BBC's SAS: Rogue Heroes and one of the Mission Impossible movies. 'Bond girls these days need to do everything Bond can do,' Simmons explains. 'Possibly more. There will always be a point in a Bond film where, without the Bond girl, Bond would fail — that's definitely a theme of the modern ones. Crucial to Bond succeeding is the Bond girl doing something better than Bond or something that Bond can't do.' After a safety briefing, Simmons hands me an enormous rifle and a Walther PPK, the neat little pistol most frequently associated with 007. I'm only allowed to dry fire because we're in central London, but these weapons are heavy enough to make my biceps tremble. I marvel at how Ana de Armas managed to shoot both at once in the most recent Bond, No Time to Die — no wonder she outshone Bond. 'When we train actors, we train them with real-life guns on a real range,' Simmons says. 'And the best shots that I've had, the most accurate, have all been ladies. • Read more film reviews, guides about what to watch and interviews 'Men can be a little bit more blasé when it comes to guns. They'll be like, 'Yeah, I've played Call of Duty, I know what I'm doing.' Whereas women, generally speaking, tend to come at it from a different perspective. They go, 'Right, tell me everything. Assume I know nothing.'' Fortunately I no longer knew nothing. Thanks to Ben, Phidias, José and my two real-life Bond girl mentors, I knew how to wield a weapon and how, like Xenia Onatopp in GoldenEye, to crush a villain's head between my thighs. There was now only one step remaining in my mock transformation. I had to hide my newly honed spy powers behind a silky outfit and glossy hairdo, channelling Fiona Volpe in Thunderball and Pussy Galore in Goldfinger. And, honestly, this was the hardest part of all. I get my eyebrows waxed and have my nails trimmed. I switch out Vaseline for a plum lipstick and take my well-worn Veja sneakers off and slip into Louboutin heels. I lasted the length of the photoshoot in a slinky satin dress, and then, exhausted, I shuffle back into my jeans. I know how to fight now, but I also know there's no chance I'd be able to show off those skills in a ballgown. Or in a bikini, for that matter. Maybe Ekland had it right when she told me: 'It doesn't matter how many women you have coming out of the sea, no one will ever be as fabulous as Ursula Andress.' Hair and make-up Ariane Young at Joy Goodman. Styling Susie Lethbridge and Zlata Gavula
The Sun
05-08-2025
- Politics
- The Sun
Shock footage shows bikini-clad women brawling on a beach in Ukraine after group started ‘playing Russian music'
THIS is the shocking moment a brawl breaks out between bikini-clad women in war torn Ukraine. The mass scrap was triggered when one group began blasting Russian music on a beach in Odesa, on the Black Sea coast, according to some local reports. 4 4 Playing Russian music publicly is banned - so any infringement at the popular Golden Beach would have riled fury. Footage shows a gaggle of women pushing and pulling at each other. One pair each has their fists gripped onto the other's hair before collapsing onto another pair brawling in the sand. Other women pile into the heap, before some men in underpants also get involved. Bodies are shoved out of the melee - some tumbling backwards and taking others with them. Things look to have calmed down, but then two men begin wrestling on their feet. And the group of women, now also back on their feet, continues to whack at each other. The Strana news outlet reported that holidaymakers fought on the beach after "a song in Russian was played". Odesa has seen almost daily drone or missile strikes during the war - and the famous Golden Beach usually provides a brief respite from the conflict. The port city has faced down more than 700 Russian attacks since war broke out in February 2022. Watch moment migrant boat arrives on Spain hols beach before they are chased & tackled by angry locals At least 131 civilians have been killed and more than 312 wounded by the aerial offensives. The Russian port punch-up follows another beach brawl between migrants and locals on the Spanish coast. A migrant boat arrived and unloaded its occupants, who were chased and tackled by angry beach goers. Around a dozen of those who arrived on the boat were detained, with some held by beachgoers until authorities arrived. The shocking incident unfolded on Sotillo Beach in Castell de Ferro, Granada in the afternoon on Sunday. Footage shared on social media shows a speed boat with young men on board arriving at the shore at around 2pm. Those on the boat are captured diving into the water in front of stunned holidaymakers and locals. They then swim to the beach before attempting making a run for it. But locals are seen tackling some of the migrants to the ground, whilst others manage to escape. A clip shows a beachgoer in swimming trunks pinning one man down whilst he appears to beg to be let go.
Yahoo
06-07-2025
- Yahoo
Grandview Heights class ring lost by the sea returned before 50-year class reunion
Someone at Mary Melfi's church recently asked her why she was still wearing her class ring. "I said, 'Oh, you don't know the story?'" she recounted. Right as she graduated from Grandview Heights High School in 1975, Melfi exchanged class rings with her then-boyfriend and drove to visit his brother in Golden Beach, Maryland, that May. When they got there, the two went down to the beach to enjoy their vacation and celebrate being done with high school. Melfi, who was going by her maiden name then, Masse, said her boyfriend put her ring in his pocket and went for a swim. When he returned from the water, the ring was nowhere to be found. "He said, 'I put the ring in my pocket, and it's gone,'" Melfi said. "I just remember slugging him and saying, 'I just got that ring.'" At some point, she and her boyfriend broke up but decided to keep in touch. She later married Larry Melfi, a 1969 Grandview Heights graduate. As the years went by, Melfi completely forgot about the ring. That was until 49 years later, when she began receiving messages on Facebook claiming a man in Maryland had her ring. That man was Shaun Tippett, who had newly picked up metal detecting as a hobby. On Tippett's third time out on the beach with his detector, he found the ring buried a foot in the sand in May 2024. Instead of keeping the ring for himself as a souvenir or trying to sell his spoils, the amateur treasure hunter took to the internet and researched Grandview Heights. He found a yearbook for the central Ohio school's class of 1975 and located the only person whose name matched the initials engraved on the ring, MVM, for Mary Virginia Masse. "I had a couple instant messages, and I reached out to them. One of them was my brother. He said, 'Yeah, some guy in Maryland said he found your ring,'" Melfi said. All these years later, Melfi has the ring on her finger once again. Tippett mailed the ring to Melfi's former flame in central Ohio, who then sent it down to her in St. Augustine, Florida, where Melfi and her husband now live. "I'm glad she's happy. I'm glad she got her ring back. It's just a cool story. I enjoy telling it," Tippett said. "People ask me, 'What's the best thing you've found?' And that's what I always tell them." Now, Melfi is preparing to attend her 50th high school reunion in Grandview Heights in early September with a story to tell. "I am now the proud owner of my GHHS 1975 class ring that was lost when I was a senior in HS while visiting a beach in Maryland. A kind soul who was metal detecting found my ring," Melfi wrote in the Grandview Heights 60's Classmates Facebook group. "The beach sand took very good care of it . . . almost 50 years later! GO CATS!" She will also return to Ohio as the owner of both rings — as she never returned her boyfriend's ring all those years ago. "One time, I said, 'You know, sweetheart, you should send his ring back," Larry Melfi joked. His wife playfully interjected. "I said, 'Well, he may think it's over if I send it back.' It's always kind of a joke." This article was made possible by support from the Center for HumanKindness at The Columbus Foundation, which has partnered with The Columbus Dispatch to profile those making our community a better place. Help us inspire kindness by suggesting people, initiatives or organizations for Reporter Sophia Veneziano to profile. She can be reached at sveneziano@ Learn more at The Dispatch retains full editorial independence for all content. This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Grandview Heights class ring returned before 50th class reunion
South China Morning Post
30-06-2025
- South China Morning Post
Hong Kong police arrest man for allegedly stealing HK$7,500 from beach campers
Police have arrested a man who allegedly stole about HK$7,500 (US$955) in cash from a camping tent at a Hong Kong beach before he was hit by a BMW car while trying to flee the scene. The force said that the money was allegedly taken from the handbags of two women who were camping with their friends at Golden Beach in Tuen Mun on Sunday night. The suspect dropped some of the money before he was knocked down by the car near the Gold Coast Yacht and Country Club at about 8pm. The suspect, a 42-year-old Vietnamese man with a recognisance form, was arrested on suspicion of theft. He complained of pain in his head, hands and legs, and was taken to Tuen Mun Hospital. The man was being held for questioning as of Monday. The bags belonged to a 43-year-old woman, surnamed Fu, and her 22-year-old friend. The older woman ended up losing HK$4,000, while the other did not incur any losses.
