Miss Moneypenny star Lois Maxwell dies aged 80

30-Sep-2007 • Actor News

Actress Lois Maxwell, who starred as Miss Moneypenny in a string of James Bond movies, has died aged 80 - reports the BBC.

Maxwell starred alongside Sir Sean Connery in Bond's first movie outing, Dr No, in 1962.

She played the role until 1985's A View To A Kill with Sir Roger Moore, who told the BBC she had been a "great asset" to the early Bond movies.

A spokesperson for Fremantle Hospital, Western Australia, said she died there on Saturday evening.

Maxwell starred in 14 Bond films as the secretary to M, the secret agent's boss and head of the secret service.

She appeared in more movies than any of the actors who played the lead role in the spy series, including Sir Sean Connery and Sir Roger Moore.

"It's rather a shock," Sir Roger, who had known her since they were students at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (Rada) in 1944, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with."

Born Lois Hooker in Ontario, Canada, in 1927, her acting career started in radio, before she moved to the UK with the Entertainment Corps of the Canadian army at the age of 15.

In the late 1940s, she moved to Hollywood and picked up a best newcomer Golden Globe for her part in Shirley Temple comedy That Hagen Girl.

After a spell working in Italy, she returned to the UK in the mid-1950s.

As well as her 14 outings as Miss Moneypenny, she also appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita and worked on TV shows including The Saint, The Baron, Randall and Hopkirk (Deceased), The Persuaders! and Department S.

Her last film role was in the 2001 thriller The Fourth Angel.