BIANCHI, DANIELA

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

(January 31, 1942–     ): Voluptuous Italian leading lady and Miss Rome 1960, who won the part of reportedly defecting Russian cipher clerk Tatiana “Tania” Romanova in From Russia with Love—a character described in Ian Fleming’s original novel as looking like a “young Greta Garbo.” A truly stunning beauty and a highlight of the series, Bianchi worked well with Sean Connery, and their scenes together have a polish and a realism that is uncommon in the series, probably because this is the best Bond script. Her seduction scene in the bridal suite of an Istanbul hotel was pretty steamy for 1963, especially with SPECTRE movie cameras recording it from inside the cabinet de voyeur. In postproduction another actress, Barbara Jefford, entirely revoiced the part, which was Bianchi’s English-language debut.

Daniela Bianchi made her European motion picture debut uncredited in the French film Love Is My Profession (1958). Four years later came her first two credited appearances: in another French film, Demons at Midnight, and in Italian director Giulio Petroni’s Always on Sunday. In 1967, Bianchi teamed with fellow Bond veterans Adolfo Celi, Bernard Lee, Anthony Dawson, and Lois Maxwell, as well as Sean Connery’s brother Neil, in the spy thriller/spoof Operation Kid Brother. In 1970, she married Italian cargo shipping company president Alberto Cameli and retired from show business. They have a son, Filippo.

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