LYND, VESPER

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

Gorgeous international liaison officer from Her Majesty’s Treasury’s Financial Action Task Force, portrayed by Eva Green in Casino Royale. She’s assigned by M (Dame Judi Dench) to make sure that James Bond (Daniel Craig) adequately manages a hefty gambling stake of 20 million pounds. Bond is being bankrolled to take down Le Chiffre (Mads Mikkelsen), an enemy agent with ties to major terrorist organizations around the world, in a high-stakes poker tournament. At first, Vesper is cool to Bond, and the coolness increases when Bond proceeds to lose his stake to Le Chiffre in a disastrous hand of Texas hold’em.

But Vesper later becomes a useful ally to Bond, especially when she discovers him nearly dead in his car from being poisoned by Le Chiffre’s girlfriend, Valenka (Ivana Milicevic). Connecting a wire from a portable defibrillator, Vesper pushes the right button and brings 007 back, a life-saving procedure that not only jump-starts their romance but also revives his poker fortunes. However, Vesper is much more than she appears. In reality, she is a blackmail victim who will do anything to save the life of her Algerian lover—even sacrifice the life of James Bond and betray the British Secret Service.

In the 1967 Casino Royale spoof, actress Ursula Andress portrayed Vesper as a seductress and double agent who lures British card expert Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) into her boudoir, where they frolic to the moody strains of Dusty Springfield’s “The Look of Love.”

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