VOLPE, FIONA

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

Voluptuous, redheaded SPECTRE assassin portrayed by Luciana Paluzzi in Thunderball. She’s a key figure in the organization’s “NATO project.” Using her feminine charms, Volpe seduces handsome NATO aerial observer François Derval (Paul Stassino), then arranges for him to be murdered by a mercenary named Angelo Palazzi, who’s been surgically altered to serve as Derval’s exact duplicate.

After the replacement Derval hijacks a NATO bomber with nuclear bombs on board, Volpe’s associate Count Lippe (Guy Doleman), who is keeping the real officer’s body at the Shrublands health clinic, attempts to kill James Bond (Sean Connery), who also happens to be at Shrublands. For jeopardizing the mission with his personal vendetta, Fiona assassinates him with a rocket from her motorcycle. She then joins SPECTRE spymaster Emilio Largo (Adolfo Celi) in Nassau, Bahamas, where she meets Bond on the highway one night after his underwater investigation in the harbor. Giving him a ride to his hotel in her Mustang, Fiona tries to intimidate him by driving at high speed, but it doesn’t work.

After kidnapping Bond’s assistant Paula Caplan (Martine Beswick), who later poisons herself rather than submitting, Fiona steals into 007’s hotel room during Nassau’s Junkanoo celebration. Bond finds her relaxing in his bathtub. When she asks for “something to put on,” he hands her some shoes. After their lovemaking, Fiona’s SPECTRE goons arrive to take Bond away, but he later escapes into the crowd during the height of the Junkanoo parade.

When Bond is wounded by one of her assistants, Fiona follows 007’s trail of blood to the Kiss Kiss Club, where she asks him for a dance. While in her arms, 007 sees an assassin lurking in the shadows and whirls Fiona around at the last moment. She gets a fatal bullet in the back.

In the Thunderball remake Never Say Never Again, Fiona’s lethal charm is inherited by the luscious Fatima Blush (Barbara Carrera).

SUBSCRIBE

Subscribe on your favorite podcast app