CARRERA, BARBARA

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

(December 31, 1945–     ): Nicaraguan actress and former model who shone as SPECTRE executioner Fatima Blush in Never Say Never Again. Carrera took an exuberant approach to the part, and in her delightfully animated hands, Fatima is a colorful psychotic who revels in her killing—a pure comic book villainess. Cackling like a witch, dancing down staircases, and sashaying across hotel lobbies, employing every possible approach to assassinating Bond (all unsuccessful, of course), Carrera is such a lively element in Never Say Never Again that the film’s pacing never recovers from her character’s death. Deprived of her presence in the film’s final third, the movie stumbles along with very little drama. As in Thunderball, the movie’s remaining villain Maximilian Largo (Klaus Maria Brandauer) does not make a very formidable opponent for Bond—nothing approaching the hysterically fiendish zeal for killing that is the essence of Fatima Blush.

Born in Bluefields, Nicaragua, Carrera moved to New York City when she was sixteen, where she pursued what would become a major career as a fashion model. Her sultry presence would eventually grace over three hundred magazine covers. She made her feature film debut portraying a model in director Jerry Schatzberg’s drama Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970). More important roles followed, and her film credits include The Master Gunfighter (1975); The Island of Dr. Moreau (1977); I, the Jury (1982); Lone Wolf McQuade (1983); and Wild Geese II (1985), with Never Say Never Again’s Edward Fox.

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