MAGDA

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

Circus performer, seasoned pickpocket, card-carrying member of the Octopus Cult, and all-around girl Friday—second in command to Octopussy (Maud Adams) and assistant/mistress to Kamal Khan (Louis Jourdan)—portrayed by Swedish actress Kristina Wayborn in Octopussy. Magda first meets Bond (Roger Moore) briefly in London at a Sotheby’s auction for a rare Fabergé egg. They’re reunited in a casino in Udaipur, India, and they eventually spend a passionate night in 007’s hotel suite—until Magda steals the genuine Fabergé egg Bond switched for a fake at the auction.

Magda’s name is actually mentioned only once in the film—when Kamal formally introduces her to Bond at the Monsoon Palace dinner. On the East German border, she helps Octopussy prepare documents for the border guards, then performs magic tricks in the circus procession through Feldstadt Air Base. She even lifts the wallet of the US Air Force base commander (Bruce Boa)—unaware that Kamal Khan and his co-conspirator General Orlov (Steven Berkoff) are using the circus as cover to detonate a nuclear bomb. After 007 exposes the plot and disarms the bomb, the swift-kicking Magda returns to Udaipur, leading her fellow acrobats in the successful assault on Kamal’s Monsoon Palace.

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