LONDON • Margaret Nolan, a stage and screen actress whose gold-painted body was used as a canvas to project the opening credits of the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964) and who played the character Dink in the movie, has died. She was 76.
She died last Monday at her home in Belfast Park, London. The cause of death was cancer, said her son Oscar Deeks, who confirmed her death.
In a career that was predominantly in the 1960s and 1970s, Nolan appeared in numerous BBC television productions and in films, including No Sex Please, We're British (1973) and Carry On Girls (1973).
She also appeared in A Hard Day's Night (1964), the musical comedy featuring The Beatles. She appeared in an uncredited role as "Grandfather's Girl at Casino".
But it was the opening title sequence of Goldfinger, which was projected onto Nolan's body as if it were a screen, that brought her fame.
In an archived version of her official website, Nolan described how she was "quite unexpectedly shot into the limelight" by the movie when she was only 20.
The film-makers wanted her to be the body for the title sequence, but she agreed to do it only if she were given a role in the movie. She ended up playing a masseuse named Dink who appears briefly with James Bond, played by actor Sean Connery.
Nolan's character in Goldfinger was not to be confused with the character who is completely painted in gold and dies of "skin suffocation". That character, Jill Masterson, was played by actress Shirley Eaton.
Nolan turned down a two-year contract to publicise the film because she said she would find it difficult to live down such attention and wanted to be taken seriously as an actress.
"As it transpired, I couldn't 'live it down' anyway and, to this day, get regular fan mail from Bond fans," she wrote.
Nolan gave up acting in the late 1980s to focus on homemaking and caring for her two sons, Deeks and Luke O'Sullivan.
Her first marriage to playwright Tom Kempinski ended in divorce, as did her second marriage to Mike O'Sullivan. She is also survived by a sister, Geraldine Ross.
NYTIMES
