LADY ROSE, THE

Contributed by: The James Bond Movie Encyclopedia by Steven Jay Rubin

The name given to the Stradivarius cello played by scholarship cellist Kara Milovy (Maryam d’Abo) in The Living Daylights. Built by hand in 1724, it was sold at a New York auction for $150,000 to arms dealer Brad Whitaker (Joe Don Baker), who gave it to renegade Soviet general Georgi Koskov (Jeroen Krabbé) as a present for his protégée/lover Kara. The cello becomes a clue to Koskov’s whereabouts. When Kara tells Bond (Timothy Dalton) that the cello is called the Lady Rose, Bond’s local contact Saunders (Thomas Wheatley) identifies Whitaker as its most recent owner of record. Since Whitaker is based in Tangier, Bond knows where to find Koskov. During their madcap escape from Czech border troops, Bond and Kara actually use the expensive cello as an ersatz ski pole, guiding their descent down a treacherous mountainside.

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