Pressies galore… Honor Blackman, who died last year aged 94, leaves a string of £10,000 gifts

Pressies galore… iconic Bond girl Honor Blackman, who died last year aged 94, leaves a string of £10,000 gifts to friends, stars and charities in her will

  • Actress left legacies to her pals with messages thanking them for their support
  • Probate records also show she bequeathed £10,000 to each of seven charities
  • She also gave £10,000 to the University of East London, close to her birthplace

Iconic Bond girl Honor Blackman gave pressies galore to charities and her friends in her will.

The actress, who died last April aged 94, left a string of legacies to pals along with touching messages thanking them for their support and for bringing laughter into her life.

While Ms Blackman, who played Pussy Galore in the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger, left the bulk of her £1.85 million estate before inheritance tax in trust for her adopted children Barnaby and Lottie, probate records show she bequeathed £10,000 to each of seven charities.

Generous: Honor Blackman pictured in 1964 when Goldfinger was released. She left a string of legacies to pals along with touching messages thanking them for their support

These were Cancer Research UK, the Stroke Association, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Mind, Save The Children, British Red Cross and Mencap. She also gave £10,000 to the University of East London, close to her birthplace in Plaistow.

Other legacies, totalling £85,000, were left to 16 friends and relatives, including £10,000 to stage director Richard Digby Day for his ‘friendship, advice and support over the years’, and £5,000 to actor Julien Ball and his wife Jane for their ‘loving friendship’.

Actor Nickolas Grace, who starred in the TV series of Brideshead Revisited, was also left £5,000 by Ms Blackman ‘for long friendship, fun and entertainment’.

Honor, who died last April aged 94, pictured in 2008. Probate records show she bequeathed £10,000 to each of seven charities

Honor, who died last April aged 94, pictured in 2008. Probate records show she bequeathed £10,000 to each of seven charities

There were other gifts of £5,000 each to Francesca Encinar ‘for the many laughs together’, and to a couple she knew in Spain so they could pay for ‘an adventure’.

A further £5,000 was left to three members of staff at her theatrical agency, Stevenson Withers Associates, to ‘spend as they wish’, with another £5,000 left to one of them ‘to help with the flat’.

Twice-divorced Ms Blackman of Lewes, East Sussex, who starred in the 1960s TV series The Avengers, also made a £10,000 gift to her son’s partner Abigail Tutill with ‘warmest thanks’ for providing her with two grandsons.

Ms Blackman rose to fame as karate expert Cathy Gale in The Avengers. She played pilot Pussy Galore in Goldfinger with Sean Connery and won new fans in ITV sitcom The Upper Hand in the 1990s.

Joanna Lumley: I really did kiss every 007

James Bond has a reputation as a prolific lover, but Joanna Lumley today confirms she has kissed every actor who has played 007.

Asked about the oft-repeated claim, the actress tells You magazine: ‘People have slightly misread that, as if I was in a steamy relationship with them all… 

‘What I’m saying is I have given all of them a mwah-mwah. But yes, I am old enough to have kissed all the Bonds.’

Ms Lumley, whose acting break came in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service where she played one of Ernst Stavro Blofeld’s Angels of Death, is sceptical about whether 007 could ever be female.

‘I don’t know about that,’ she says. ‘Ian Fleming took such care to describe Bond that if you want to use a woman, you might just write a different story. I can’t see the point in hanging on to the Bond-ness of it. I don’t think she should be called Joanna Bond. Bond was a man.’

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