MASTERSON, JILL

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

Seductive girl Friday to Auric Goldfinger (Gert Fröbe) in Miami Beach, portrayed by curvaceous actress Shirley Eaton in Goldfinger. Bond (Sean Connery) finds her in Goldfinger’s suite at the Fontainebleau Hotel, helping her boss cheat Mr. Simmons (Austin Willis) at gin. Equipped with a radio transmitter and a pair of high-powered binoculars, she is spying on Simmons’s hand and feeding the results to Goldfinger via a receiver camouflaged as his hearing aid.

Dressed—or, shall we say, undressed—in a black bra and panties and lying sexily prone on a chaise lounge, she is surprised by Bond, who then forces Goldfinger to start losing to Simmons; otherwise, he’ll report the scam to the Miami Beach police. Masterson, of course, falls in with Bond, and they go directly to his bedroom in the same hotel.

After switching allegiances, Masterson pays the ultimate penalty: death by skin suffocation when her entire body is painted gold by Oddjob (Harold Sakata), Goldfinger’s mute Korean manservant. Bond is later informed that such a death is not uncommon among cabaret dancers. To prevent such a demise, the movie claims, a small patch of skin must be left bare at the base of the spine so that the skin can breathe—a safety measure that was not performed in Miss Masterson’s case.

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