The Life and Legacy of Actress Martine Beswick, Jamaica’s Two-Time Bond Girl

Martine Beswick, born Mary Rose Penso Beswick on 26 September 1941 to Ronald Stuart Davis Beswick, a British father, and Myrtle May, of Portuguese-Jamaican heritage, is an actress and former model from Jamaica’s northeast coast. She went on to secure a unique place in film history as the only actress to portray a Bond Girl in two different 007 films, while also making her mark in cult horror and Hollywood television — achievements that cemented her as one of the defining screen sirens of the 1960s and 70s.

Early Life and Pageant Days

Beswick spent her early childhood in Jamaica before moving to England with her family as a teenager. Returning home in 1960, she worked briefly as an air hostess and entered the Miss Jamaica Beauty Contest. Writing in The Gleaner in 1965, journalist Hartley Neita noted that she was runner-up in the competition and used her prize money to finance a return to London, where she began modelling for magazines and television commercials.

A later Gleaner profile in 1987 recalled a slightly different version of events, stating that she was unplaced in the contest but sold a Mini Minor motorcar she had won in a local event to fund her journey abroad. Once in London, she supported herself with odd jobs — even pumping petrol in a bikini — while pursuing acting work. That same year she also appeared on the cover of the Daily Mirror after a nightclub fracas involving her “tight jeans,” a publicity stunt that boosted her visibility.

Her persistence paid off. In 1963 she appeared on the cover of the Daily Mirror after being caught up in a nightclub scuffle, a publicity stunt that brought her wider notice. Around the same time, she dropped her given name Mary for the more exotic “Martine.”

Double Duty as a Bond Girl

Beswick auditioned for Dr. No (1962), hoping to land the part of Honey Ryder, which ultimately went to Ursula Andress. Her break came the following year when she was cast as Zora, a fiery gypsy girl in From Russia with Love (1963). The film featured a now-famous “catfight” scene with actress Aliza Gur, Miss Israel 1960, which cemented her screen presence.

Director Terence Young brought her back for Thunderball (1965), where she played Paula Caplan, a field agent who allies with James Bond in the Bahamas. Beswick’s character met a tragic end, choosing suicide over betraying state secrets to her captors.

Cult Horror Icon

While Bond gave her international recognition, it was Hammer Films that cemented Beswick as a cult star. She co-starred with Raquel Welch in One Million Years B.C. (1966), famously locking horns in another on-screen brawl, this time with dinosaurs in the background. In Prehistoric Women (1967), she played the villainous Queen Kari, and in Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), she took on the ambitious dual role of Jekyll’s sinister female alter ego.

As Classic Monsters magazine has noted, these roles established her reputation as a “Queen of Horror” — able to blend glamour with menace in ways that made her stand out in a crowded genre.

Hollywood and Television

By the 1970s, Beswick had relocated to Hollywood, where she began making appearances on American television. She guest-starred in series including The Six Million Dollar Man, Mannix, Baretta, Aspen, and It Takes a Thief.

In the mid-1980s she joined the cast of the primetime soap Falcon Crest, playing Pamela Lynch after a dramatic storyline involving plastic surgery gave the character a new face. The Gleaner, reporting on her casting in 1987, proudly noted that the “new Pamela” was none other than the Jamaican-born actress who had first caught attention decades earlier.

Later Life and Legacy

Beswick retired from acting in 1995 after appearing in Night of the Scarecrow. In later years she contributed commentary to several documentaries, including Inside From Russia with Love (2000) and The Wild Untold Story of Cannon Films (2004). She also joined a group of Bond alumnae for BBC MasterChef in 2013.

In 2018, she briefly came out of retirement to appear in House of the Gorgon, acting alongside fellow Hammer icons Caroline Munro, Veronica Carlson, and Christopher Neame. A year later she was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards’ Monster Kid Hall of Fame, a recognition of her lasting contribution to cult cinema.

Most recently, Beswick published her memoir On My Way, a collection of anecdotes spanning her childhood in Jamaica, her film career, and her lifelong friendships. The book includes a foreword by screenwriter John Logan (Skyfall, Gladiator), who praised her work in Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde and celebrated her enduring influence on cinema.

More than six decades on, Martine’s legacy continues to be celebrated at film conventions, Bond retrospectives, and among fans who still remember the Jamaican actress who twice stood alongside 007.