Bond Girls! Then and Now

"Careful with this one, Mr. Bond. She won't go to bed with you unless you give her something she really wants."

And he doesn't. They are not in love, there is no sex, and only a short kiss. That's the buzz on the upcoming 007 flick, Quantum of Solace, due out November 14th.

For the first time, the perennial playboy (Daniel Craig) doesn't bag the Bond Girl. Unknown Ukrainian model-turned-actress Olga Kurylenko plays a hard-as-nails chica Latina agent from Bolivia (confusing, no?) with her own private vendetta. (Even St. Petersburg seems confused: the Communist Party says Kurylenko has betrayed her roots.)

The modern Bond Grrrls are more forceful, stronger women who no longer giggle in their bikinis. But they still ooze sex, the kind that gets you into trouble. And the accents are still fake, the breasts still real.

Which got us to wondering....in what ways has the Bond Girl evolved?

In the '60s Bond was about swinging in the Cold War, a spy who combated the evil forces while making love to lots of beautiful women. It was the kind of film your parents wouldn't let you see.

Ursula Andress (72) first walked out of the ocean and into male America's fantasies as Honey Ryder in Dr. No (1962). She's had a facelift sometime in the past and only in the last few years has begun to lose her looks. Fluent in four languages, her accented english was dubbed over.

Honor Blackman (81) played Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964), probably the first to flex her brains and brawn on screen. Shown here in faux brusing to publicize a British campaign working to end domestic violence against women.

Diana Rigg (70) played Italian Tracy diVicenzo, On Her Majesty's Secret Service (1969), an British actress cast as a lovelorn Mafia heiress. To date she's the only Bond Girl to score a wedding ring. She confesses to a blepharoplasty at 44 and 20 cigarettes a day. Smoking is not a Bond Girl's best friend.

In the '70s the Bond franchise brought several women to the big screen and then took them off again.

Brit Jane Seymour (57 ) appeared in Live and Let Die and Swede Britt Ekland (66) in The Man With the Golden Gun. Neither performance was memorable – but that's quite the facelift (and browlift, and lip filler).

Jill St. John's (68) IQ of 162 was definitely higher than that of her character Tiffany Case in Diamonds Are Forever (1971), a voluptuous lady running around a burning oil rig in a technicolor bikini. St. John had a rhinoplasty at age 16, at the urging of her mother, but she didn't stop there; this is not the face of a sexagenarian.

Barbara Bach (62) was Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), an American actress playing a Russian KGB agent, the Bond Girl incarnation of women's liberation as 007's first modern co-worker. Ringo has gifted her some lovely surgical work.

The '80s were pretty dry.

Most memorable was the French actress Carole Bouquet (50) playing Melina Havelock, a half British-half Greek in For Your Eyes Only (1981). The face of Chanel, she went on to captivate Gérard Depardieu, have her phone bugged by François Mitterand, and (allegedly) enjoy an affair with President Sarkozy.

In came the '90s. It just wasn't going to be a good decade, either, for Bond Girls.

Teri Hatcher (44 ), remember her? She played Paris Carver in Tomorrow Never Dies (1997). Okay, you don't remember it, only Desperate Housewives. Her real breakout role was uncredited in Star Trek: Next Generation in 1988. Some ongoing use of Botox (which she denies) seems indicated in this recent candid photo. Her periocular (crowsfeet) and glabellar (between the eyebrows) areas appear frozen.

Turn of the century?

But never say die – or in this case, Die Another Day (2002). Halle Berry (42) playing Giacinta 'Jinx' Johnson rises out of the sea, resurrecting the Bond franchise for the next century.

Did you miss hearing Anne flesh it all out today with Kevyn Burger on-air? Use this link to find the FM107.1 audio archive of Knifestyles broadcasts by date (second hour). Step one: select the date shown on the blog posting; step two: click on Kevyn Burger; step three: click on second hour. Enjoy!

Miracle Babies (IVF)

We've just passed our de-paganized egg celebration and all sorts of cute and fuzzy Hollywood coverbabies are on display. That's J-Lo (38) and her $6 million dollar fraternal twins on the front of this month's People magazine.

And Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon (41) has posed with her fraternal twins for JET magazine.

Dennis Quaid and his wife Kimberly (36) were recently in the news when their fraternal twins were mistakenly overdosed in the hospital shortly after birth.

Lisa Marie Presley (40) has just announced on her MySpace page that she is expecting (rumored to be twins just like papa Elvis).

Previous seasons' lineups also featured a lot of multiples. Julia Roberts led the way with premature fraternal twins in 2004 at the age of 36. The stork brought fraternal twins for Beverly D'Angelo (49), Angela Bassett (47), Geena Davis (48), Holly Hunter (47), Jane Seymour (45), and Marcia Cross (44) as well.

Hmmm. Noticing a trend here? Older mothers? Twins anyone?

And then there's the current batch of singletons. Nicole Kidman (40) is 5 months pregnant and to make sure everyone knows, she donned a hideous see-through Prada dress back in February.

Minnie Driver (38) has announced her pregnancy, but the sperm donor is unannounced.

Cate Blanchett (38) is having her third child this April.

Gwen Stefani (38) is about to pop number two.

Julianna Margulies (41) just gave birth to a boy.

Helena Bonham Carter (41) delivered with Tim Burton just in time for the release of their other collaboration, Sweeny Todd.

Halle Berry (41) gave birth to her first, Nahla Ariela, last week. (Nahla is Arabic for 'drink of water,' Ariela is related to the Hebrew for 'lion of god.') Was it easy to conceive? "...[T]here was a lot of staying home and doing what you do. Like, all the time, around the clock," she said on Oprah. "Did you know that they call this a geriatric pregnancy? I cringe when I hear that. I'm like, 'Take that off my chart!' "

So how is it that these famous "elderly" mamas are defying the laws of nature? God loves them more? Well....maybe. In the old Testament, Jacob has two wives, Leah and Rachel, who dealt with menopausal infertility by giving him their respective hand maidens. Infertility specialists are the modern version.

Let's start with a few definitions to wipe that vaseline coating off the camera lens.
MIRACLE: something that appears inexplicable by the laws of nature and so is held to be supernatural in origin or an act of God.
ELDERLY PRIMIGRAVIDA: a woman older than 35 years who is pregnant for the first time.
FERTILE: pregnant within one year of non-protected intercourse.

Everyone has a story about someone's perimenopausal baby miracle - but scientifically that's pretty much what such a pregnancy is: a miracle.

Statistically, a sexually active 40-year-old woman has a 5% chance of conceiving in any given month. A 30-year-0ld has a 20% chance. At age 42, 90% of a woman's remaining eggs are abnormal. These eggs come with an expiration date.

These late-in-life Hollywood babies create false perceptions about fertility that can devastate women planning midlife pregnancies, particularly those of modest financial means.

In vitro fertilization (IVF) is just part of the picture. In vitro is Latin for "in glass," ie, outside the living organism (or Hollywood womb if you prefer). IVF is the technique in which egg cells are fertilized by sperm in the petri dish. The fertilized egg (zygote) is then squirted into the uterus. To improve the odds, more than one zygote is transferred at one time, which leads to the rising incidence of multiple births.

The second piece of the picture is the egg itself. Egg quality is the primary barrier to pregnancy in older women. The live birthrate for IVF using a woman's own eggs is 25% for 30-year-olds, 16% at age 40, 9% at 42, 5% at 43, 2% thereafter. And retrieval of those eggs from hyperstimulated ovaries is no picnic either.

However, IVF pregnancy rates soar when the egg is donated by a younger woman and implanted into the hormonally-enhanced elderly uterus. It's safe to assume that the celebrity women pregnant in their mid-40s are using donor eggs. Some admit to it, most do not.

For a good primer on egg donation and gestational surrogacy (the borrowed uterus), Wikipedia is your friend.

Fade to Black (Suicide)

Dorothy Parker had it about right:

Razors pain you;
rivers are damp;
acids stain you;
and drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
nooses give;
gas smells awful;
you might as well live.

'Tis the season to not be jolly, for some people. The holidays are difficult for the emotionally vulnerable and Hollywood inhabitants are no exception.

Witness our suicide watch for Britney Spears after her latest debacle. Our troubled queen of tabloid trainwrecks has her visitation rights suspended after a non-exchange of the children, is whisked away by ambulance, discharges herself AMA after refusing psychiatric treatment, flies off to Mexico with her new boyfriend for a 24-hour liquid cure at the bar, and then shows up three hours late for a court hearing which she doesn't attend.

Ooops, she did it again.

And she's not the only one. Kate Hudson announced in this month's Vogue that she wishes Owen Wilson "beautiful things — health and everything that he desires in life” after his suicide attempt last August (wrist slashing and pills).

There's a long tradition of suicide attempts, near-misses, and bullseyes in Tinsel Town.

It's almost expected in the music industry. Typically, the singers make it stick: Judy Garland (and Auntie Em, too), Dorothy Dandridge, Kurt Cobain....The Singing Nun (she and her lesbian lover took an overdose of barbiturates and alcohol).

My money is on poor Amy Winehouse.

Then there are those Hollywood stars who have tried and failed. Many iconic names pop up: Maxene Andrews, Brigitte Bardot, Sammy Davis, Jr., Patty Duke, Elizabeth Taylor, Robert Young. More recently, Halle Berry, distraught over a failed marriage, tried to end her life by carbon monoxide poisoning. Drew Barrymore got it out of the way early when she tried to kill herself after leaving drug rehab in 1989 at the age of 14.

Sometimes it runs in the family. Margaux Hemingway, the actress/model granddaughter of Ernest Hemingway, died via a phenobarbital overdose. Papa Hemingway also took an early exit, as did his father, Clarence Hemingway, and his two siblings Ursula and Leicester.

And the most famous one of them all? No, Marilyn Monroe's death was probably not a suicide. Donald Spoto's 2001 biography makes a very convincing case that her death was essentially a tragic medical mistake.

The suicide rate rose by about 20% between 1999 and 2004 among middle-aged Americans, its highest point in 25 years according to the CDC (Centers for Disease Control). While four times as many men suicide, women are more likely to attempt. The 45-54 age group is led by women; men wait until retirement. What is most predictive of completed suicide is a history of serious attempts – alcohol and drugs up that risk enormously. An expression of hopelessness is a particularly ominous sign, and someone who admits to a plan is at maximum risk.

It doesn't exactly sneak up on those close to the suicide.

What to do? Ask him or her. Then ask again. For a very thoughtful further exploration of this topic, link here to read an excerpt from authors Gayle Rosellini and Mark Worden's book Here Comes the Sun.


PS:
As promised, here is the verdict on Donda West's post-surgical death last November. The autopsy report released last week states she died of "...coronary artery disease and multiple postoperative factors..." While recuperating at home the next evening after her surgery, she was left unattended long enough to vomit up old blood, aspirate it, and have a heart attack.

Remember Dr. Andre Aboolian? He's the board certified plastic surgeon who asked for a preoperative exam from an internist: "I always insist on a medical clearance for women over 40, and in this instance, it was particularly important because of a condition she had I felt could have led to a heart attack."

Kanye West's mother had a family history of heart disease and hypertension. Her sister had died of a heart attack. She, herself, had been treated in the past for hypertension. She was obese (188 lbs.) and wanted a lengthy 5 and a half-hour surgery: a bilateral mammaplasty (breast lift with 325 ml implants) and circumferential abdominoplasty (belt lipectomy, liposuction). On autopsy, her right coronary artery was found to be 50-70% occluded and she had an abnormal hemoglobin variant.

The Los Angeles coroner did not determine the manner of death, but here's how he thinks it played out. The tight postop bandages around her torso constricted her breathing, along with the pain medications which can depress the respiratory centers of the brain. If her blood was somewhat diluted with all the intra-operative fluids she received over the long surgery, it would exacerbate the drug-induced hypotension (low blood pressure). When she aspirated her vomit this further decreased the oxygen supply to the lungs. The drop in oxygenation and low blood pressure was too much for her compromised heart and she went into asystolic cardiac arrest, dying before anyone noticed.


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