Shirley Eaton
Shirley Jean Eaton (born 12 January 1937) is an English actress. Eaton appeared regularly in British films throughout the 1950s and 1960s, and gained her highest profile for her iconic appearance as Bond Girl Jill Masterson in the James Bond film Goldfinger (1964), which gained her bombshell status. Eaton also had roles in the early Carry On films. Preferring to devote herself to bringing up a family, she retired from acting in 1969. Eaton came out of retirement in 1999 to release her autobiography titled Golden Girl, which was a bestseller, and has released three more books throughout the 2000s. Early life Eaton was born on 12 January 1937 in Edgware General Hospital, Middlesex, and brought up in the suburb of Kingsbury. She attended Roe Green Primary School on Princes Avenue, and although living close to both Kingsbury County Grammar School and Tylers Croft Secondary Modern School, won a place at the Aida Foster Theatre School, a specialist drama school, and remained there until she was sixteen. Her stage debut was in Benjamin Britten's Let's Make an Opera! and her West End debut was in 1954 in Going to Town. Career All through the 1950s, Eaton was a singing star, both on the stage and on television, appearing with her own act in variety shows throughout the country and starring at the Prince of Wales Theatre in London in her own solo singing act, as well as appearing in many films. Eaton participated in the British heat of the 1957 Eurovision Song Contest. Throughout her career, Eaton appeared with many of the top British male comedy stars of the period, including Jimmy Edwards, Max Bygraves, Bob Monkhouse, and Arthur Askey. Eaton's female co-stars included Peggy Mount, Thora Hird, and Dora Bryan among others. Her early roles include Three Men in a Boat (1956) and Date with Disaster (1957), in which she co-starred with Tom Drake. She appeared in The Belles of St Trinian's (1954), two of the "Doctor" film series, three early Carry On films and worked with the Crazy Gang in Life Is a Circus (1958). Eaton left comedy roles by appearing opposite Mickey Spillane in The Girl Hunters (1963) in which Spillane played his own literary creation Mike Hammer. During the 1962 London shoot she appeared on stage in Come Blow Your Horn. She made three episodes of The Saint, starring Roger Moore, including the pilot. She was in a 1962 episode of the British television series Man of the World that was the pilot for the TV series The Sentimental Agent. Her episode was included in a 1963 feature film of the series entitled Our Man in the Caribbean. Eaton achieved the most recognition for her performance as Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger (1964). She appeared on the cover of Life magazine in her gold-painted persona. Her character's death, being painted head to toe in gold paint and suffering "skin suffocation", led to an urban myth that Eaton had died during filming. She