'For Your Eyes Only' Caroline 'Tula' Cossey interviewed by Playboy
Caroline Cossey, better known to Bond fans as 'Tula', has given an exclusive interview to Playboy Magazine this month to discuss her status as a transgender woman. She was famously one of the background Bond Girls in the 1981 James Bond film 'For Your Eyes Only.'
To promote the film, she, along with the filmâs other Bond girls, appeared in a Playboy pictorial, images from which have been republished by Playboy in the current issue. Tulaâs career was soaring. Life was good. But everything changed the following year. The British tabloid News of the World revealed Tulaâs secret in a single headline: JAMES BOND GIRL WAS A BOY.
It was after that marriage ended that you asked to pose for Playboy. Why?
I did Playboy as a Bond girl before everything about me came out, and I was very proud. This time, I was in the middle of my battle with the European Court of Human Rights. With the fight I was dealing with, trying to get recognition and everything, I thought it would be a great platform if Playboy would allow it. I had done pinups and calendars and glamour shoots, but to be the first transsexual in Playboy, I felt absolutely honored. I remember being invited to the Mansion to meet Hugh Hefner. He looked into my eyes and I immediately knew he felt my story. He felt my cause.
The job that startedâand nearly endedâit all was For Your Eyes Only. The Bond films are bigger than ever, winning Oscars and raking in hundreds of millions of dollars. If you were to get a phone call tomorrow asking you to appear in another Bond movie, what would you say?
Thereâs not a big calling for 60-year-old transsexual women. [laughs] I would hear it out. I would never say no to something thatâs tastefully done, but Iâm not expecting to grace any covers anytime soon.
Click here to read the full Playboy interview online.
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