About Ursula Andress
Ursula Andress (born 19 March, 1936) is a Golden Globe award winning Swiss actress and a major sex symbol of the 1960s. She is best known for her roles as two Bond girls: Honey Ryder in Dr. No and Vesper Lynd in Casino Royale , the 1967 James Bond spoof.
Ursula was born in Ostermundigen, Berne, Switzerland, to a Swiss-German mother and a German father. Her father, Rolf Andress, was a German diplomat. He disappeared during World War II. Andress has four sisters and one brother. She is fluent in English, French, Italian, and German.
Andress started her career as an art model in Rome, which led to her first roles in the Italian movie industry.
She became famous as Honey Ryder, a shell diver and James Bond's object of desire in Dr. No (1962), the first Bond movie . The scene made Andress the "quintessential" Bond girl , and is now considered iconic. "My entrance in the film wearing the bikini on that beautiful beach made me world famous as 'the Bond girl'", she said, and the bikini from this "classic moment in cinema and Bond history" sold for £35,000 at auction in 2001. In 2003, in a UK Survey by Channel 4, her entrance in Dr. No was voted 1 in "the 100 Greatest Sexy Moments" . In 2007, Australian series 20 to 1 ranked her entrance in Dr. No as the 2 Sexiest Movie Moment.
Andress won a 1964 Golden Globe award for New Star of the Year for her performance in Dr. No. Her voice was provided by Nikki van der Zyl while the famous calypso music was sung by Diana Coupland.
She has the singular distinction among Bond girl actresses of having actually appeared in the narrative of a Fleming novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, written after Fleming was present during filming of Dr. No. She is pointed out to Bond by Irma Bunt while they are dining at Piz Gloria.
Andress co-starred with the King of Rock 'n' Roll Elvis Presley in the 1963 film, Fun in Acapulco, with Frank Sinatra in 4 for Texas (1963) and opposite Marcello Mastroianni in The 10th Victim (1965). She also appeared in the Bond satire Casino Royale (1967) as Vesper Lynd, an occasional spy who persuades Evelyn Tremble, as played by Peter Sellers to carry out a mission. Her heavy accent was dubbed over in Dr. No, but she used her own voice in Casino Royale.
In 1965, she posed nude for a picture for Playboy.
In 1981's Clash of the Titans, she starred opposite legendary English actor Laurence Olivier.
In 1995, Ursula Andress was chosen by Empire magazine as one of the "100 Sexiest Stars in film history."
