Shirley Eaton as golden girl Jill Masterson in "Goldfinger".

Shirley Eaton (born January 12, 1937) is a British actress who appeared in many British black and white comedies in the 1950s and onwards. Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (825x480, 61 KB) Licensing This image is a screenshot from a copyrighted film, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by the studio which produced the film, and possibly also by any actors appearing in the screenshot. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Download high resolution version (825x480, 61 KB) Licensing This image is a screenshot from a copyrighted film, and the copyright for it is most likely owned by the studio which produced the film, and possibly also by any actors appearing in the screenshot. ... January 12 is the 12th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1937 (MCMXXXVII) was a common year starting on Friday (link will take you to calendar). ... The 1950s was the decade spanning the years 1950 to 1959. ...

She was born in London. Throughout her career, she appeared with many of the top British male comedy stars from the period including Jimmy Edwards, Max Bygraves, Bob Monkhouse and Arthur Askey. Her female co-stars included Peggy Mount, Thora Hird and Dora Bryan among others. London (pronounced ) is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom. ... Jimmy Edwards (23 March 1920 – 7 July 1988 was a British radio and television comedy actor, best known as Pa Glum in Take It From Here and as the headmaster Professor James Edwards in Whack-O. Born James Keith ONeill in Barnes, London, Edwards served in the Royal Air... Max Bygraves - CD cover Max Bygraves OBE (born 16 October 1922 in Rotherhithe, London as Walter William Bygraves) is an English singer songwriter, famous for his waving hands. ... Bob Monkhouse presenting Celebrity Squares (Image copyright British Film Institute) Robert Allen Monkhouse OBE (June 1, 1928 – December 29, 2003), was an English entertainer in the traditional sense, though primarily known as a comedian and game show host. ... Arthur Askey (June 6, 1900 - November 16, 1982) was a prominent British comedian. ... Peggy Mount (actress) Peggy Mount (born Margaret Rose Mount on 2 May 1916 in Leigh-on-Sea, Essex; died 13 November 2001) was a British actress of stage and screen. ... Dame Thora Hird (May 28, 1911 - March 15, 2003) was a veteran British actress born in the Lancashire seaside town of Morecambe. ... Dora Bryan (born Dora Mary Broadbent on February 7, 1924) is a British actress, a household name with a huge list of films to her credit. ...

Early roles include Three Men In A Boat (1956) and Date with Disaster (1957), starring with American Tom Drake. She also worked with The Crazy Gang in Life Is a Circus (1958) and with Mickey Spillane in The Girl Hunters (1963) in which Spillane played his own literary creation Mike Hammer. Later she starred in an entertaining version of Ten Little Indians (1965), co-starring American singer and actor Fabian. She also appeared in several early Carry On films, but did little TV work (she did appear in three episodes of The Saint opposite Roger Moore). Three Men in a Boat (To Say Nothing of the Dog), published 1889, is a humorous account by Jerome K. Jerome of a boating holiday on the Thames between Kingston and Oxford. ... Tom Drake (1918-1982, b. ... The Crazy Gang were a group of British entertainers who got together in the early 1930s, they achieved great national popularity and were a favourite of the royal family, especially King George VI. The members were: Bud Flanagan, Chesney Allen, Jimmy Nervo, Teddy Knox, Charlie Naughton and Jimmy Gold and... Frank Morrison Spillane (March 9, 1918 – July 17, 2006), better known as Mickey Spillane, was an American author of crime novels. ... DVD cover of The Girl Hunters The Girl Hunters is a 1962 Mike Hammer pulp novel made into a movie in 1963. ... Mike Hammer is a fictional American detective created by the American author Mickey Spillane in the 1947 book I, the Jury (made into a movie in 1953 and 1982). ... The 1945 film version, showing (left to right) Barry Fitzgerald, June Duprez and Walter Huston Ten Little Niggers (also known as Ten Little Indians and And Then There Were None) is a work of detective fiction by Agatha Christie, first published in England in 1939. ... Fabian (born February 6, 1943) was an American teen idol of the late 1950s and early 1960s. ... The Carry On films were a long-running series of British popular low-budget comedy films, directed by Gerald Thomas and produced by Peter Rogers. ... The Saint was a long-running British action adventure television series, made by ITC Entertainment, that aired on ITV stations between 1962 and 1969, and on American television as a syndicated show (1962-1967) and on NBC (1967-69). ... Moore and Tony Curtis in The Persuaders! (1971/72). ...

However, undoubtedly Eaton's most famous role was that of Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. Her character's demise, being painted head to toe in gold paint and suffering "skin suffocation", became an iconic image of the film and inadvertently led to the creation of an urban legend concerning both the method of death and the actress' own fate. Eaton, very much alive, later appeared in a 2003 episode of the TV documentary series MythBusters to help debunk the legend. However, it should be said that Margaret Nolan, not Eaton, was actually the golden girl who appeared in the film's well known advertising campaign and title sequence. Shirley Eaton as golden girl Jill Masterson in Goldfinger. Jill Masterson is a fictional character in the James Bond film, Goldfinger. ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... The James Bond 007 gun logo James Bond 007, is a fictional British spy created by writer Ian Fleming in 1952. ... Goldfinger is the third film in the EON Productions James Bond series, and the third to star Sean Connery as British Secret Service agent, Commander James Bond 007. ... Suffocation can mean two things: Suffocation, or Asphyxia, is a medical condition where the body is depraved of oxygen. ... Urban legends are a kind of modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them (see rumor). ... MythBusters is an American pop science television program on the Discovery Channel starring special effects experts Adam Savage and Jamie Hyneman, who use their skills and expertise to test the validity of various rumors and urban legends in popular culture. ... Margaret Nolan a. ...

In any case, the movie made Eaton a star; she even appeared on the cover of Life Magazine in her gold-painted persona. After Goldfinger, Eaton made a few more films including the notorious The Million Eyes of Su-Muru, before she retired from acting to raise her family. A cover of Life Magazine from 1911 Life has been the name of two notable magazines published in the United States. ...

Eaton expressed no regrets in giving up show business while at the height of her fame. In a 1999 interview with Steve Swires of Starlog Magazine, Eaton said: "A career is a career, but you're a mother until you die." Starlog is a science-fiction film magazine published by Starlog Group Inc. ...

External links

• Shirley Eaton at the Internet Movie Database
• Snopes.com article concerning Goldfinger urban legend
• Carry On Line: Official Website of the Carry On films Detailed information on the Carry Ons