A look back at the Goldfinger credits sequence

The blonde is Margaret Nolan, a forgotten 1960s starlet. The man in silhouette is Robert Brownjohn, one of the most innovative, expensive and downright difficult art directors of the 60s - reports The Guardian.

Nolan is being filmed for the title sequence of Goldfinger (1964), the third James Bond film. She was painted gold from head to toe and images from the film were projected on to her body, creating a hallucinogenic effect that was ahead of its time. Brownjohn had succeeded in turning a title sequence - generally an afterthought - into high art. Had he not died in 1970 from a heart attack aged 44, he would have received greater credit for his innovation.

Robert "Bj" Brownjohn had already made a name for himself as a designer in 1950s New York when he arrived in London in 1960. He claimed that he came over for the city's creative energy. His girlfriend, the super-chic fashion designer Kiki Byrne, remembers it differently. "You could get heroin on the National Health back then," says Byrne. "And Bj did have a problem. But he was also terribly gifted, so he quickly established himself as one of the key figures during a very special period in history."

Brownjohn was at the heart of swinging London when he got the call from Albert "Cubby" Broccoli to design the title sequences for From Russia With Love and Goldfinger. Having been given £850 for the first film, he demanded £5,000 for the second, a huge amount at the time. "We quoted £5,000 and it cost £5,000," remembers his assistant Trevor Bond. "You never made a profit on Bj." Byrne designed the bikini for Nolan.

Goldfinger was to prove a high point in Brownjohn's career. In 1968 he designed the sleeve for the Rolling Stones' album Let It Bleed, an unhappy experience that he illustrated by featuring a smashed wedding cake on the back cover. By this time, heavy drinking and drug use had taken over at the expense of output. He broke up with Byrne the following year, and soon he was living alone in a basement bedsit. But once, as his friend and fellow designer Alan Fletcher remembers, "Bj was the right man, in the right job, in the right place."

-- Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography by Emily King is published by Laurence King in October. An accompanying exhibition is at the Design Museum, London SE1, from October 15.

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