Honor Blackman

26/01/2010

Infamous Bond girl, aged 84

At 16 I was rather serious. I’d already started work as a clerk in the civil service, which made me feel wondrously independent. I was astonishingly innocent compared to today’s teenagers but quite happy. I had just started elocution lessons and I was very wrapped up in learning poetry and the theatre and I found that world very exciting.

My father slapped my face when I first put on lipstick. I was about 18. He had such high standards, one never quite measured up. He was the kind of person who when one was very small, one couldn’t got for a walk and just enjoy the walk – one had to think of all the things that began with ‘M’ along the way. You couldn’t just enjoy life, there was always a price to pay. I was scared of him because he did give us clips around the ear or, on occasions, really whack us. I loved him – but then children do. Even if your father’s a murderer you love him because you don’t know any better and he’s your father.

My mother was full of reservations about my decision to go into the business. Actresses to her were the next thing to prostitutes. She didn’t like it when I played bitches or unfaithful women. My father thought he could watch over me.

My younger self wouldn’t have believed you could make a life as an actress. I had a very stern teacher called Miss Hathaway who put me in a play when I was evacuated in the war. I met her later when I was in my first acting job and she said: “You can’t possibly imagine you’ll be able to make a living doing that.” She must be dead now but I wonder how she felt later on when she found out it was perfectly possible for me to do just that.

I had enormous trouble when I went to America to do the promotion tour for Goldfinger. Some interviewers wouldn’t say the name of Pussy Galore. In fact they wouldn’t allow Goldfinger into the States to begin with – it wasn’t until the American press saw a picture of me with Prince Philip, headed ‘The Prince and the Pussy’, that they thought it would be alright. I don’t think my father would have minded because I don’t think he would have known a pussy was a name for a vulva.
Both of my children are adopted.

I think it’s important to let adopted children know they are adopted from as early as possible, otherwise you’re lying to them. They are aware that they’ve been given away and the rejection is fierce. The teenage years can be very difficult. So woe betide you if you fail them.

I’d warn my young self that my father’s voice will stay in my head long after he dies. The self-discipline thing stands to this day. I find it extra difficult just to spend a weekend just reading for pleasure – I feel so guilty that I haven’t done or learned more. I think my father made it hard for me to believe that anything I had was good enough, even husbands [Honor has been divorced twice]. From someone so unsatisfactory herself, to have such high standards for other people is unforgiveable but that’s the way one was made.

The Upper Hand series one DVD is out on January 18  (Network, £19.99)

Interview: Jane Graham