Molly Peters (15 March 1939 – 30 May 2017), born Vivien Mollie Rudderham, was an English actress and model best known for her role as Bond girl Patricia Fearing in the James Bond film Thunderball.
Career
Molly Peters started out as a model and was discovered by film director Terence Young.
She appeared in several films during the 1960s. Her best-known appearance was the role of Bond girl, Patricia Fearing or Pat, a nurse who takes care of James Bond (Sean Connery) while he is on holiday at her health clinic in Thunderball (1965). Peters was the first Bond girl to be seen taking her clothes off on screen in the Bond series.
Peters appeared in Playboy in the November 1965 issue. Her appearance was as part of a pictorial essay titled “James Bond’s Girls” by Richard Maibaum.
According to the special edition DVD of Thunderball, Peters’ short film career resulted from a disagreement between her and her agent. The specifics of the disagreement were not revealed, other than, according to Peters, her agent at the time of Thunderball held her to her contract agreement of representation because of the mega-successful box-office hit of the fourth James Bond film in 1965. Only many years later, when the fame, glamour and chaos from the release of Thunderball had faded, her contractual agreement ended, and so had any modelling and/or film prospects.
