PALUZZI, LUCIANA

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

(June 10, 1937–     ): Voluptuous, redheaded Italian leading lady who portrayed SPECTRE assassin Fiona Volpe in Thunderball. Luciana’s introduction while wearing a sheer negligee in the bedroom of François Derval (Paul Stassino) was definitely an early highlight of the film. She’s the perfect example of the type of woman the producers liked to cast as a ruthless villain in the early 007 thrillers: European, busty, and very sexy.

A native of Rome, Paluzzi appeared in a number of international films before making her credited big-screen English-language debut as Carola in Bond director Terence Young’s Tank Force (1958), a.k.a. No Time to Die, a World War II drama coproduced by Albert R. Broccoli and written by Young and Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum—a part that surely put her on Mr. Young’s radar for Thunderball.

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