Honor Blackman (22 August 1925 – 5 April 2020) was an English actress and singer, known for the roles of Cathy Gale in The Avengers[1] (1962–1964), Bond girl Pussy Galore in Goldfinger (1964), Julia Daggett in Shalako (1968), and Hera in Jason and the Argonauts (1963).

[4] For her 15th birthday, her parents gave her acting lessons and began her training at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama in 1940.

[7] Her other films include Quartet (1948),[8] based on short stories by W. Somerset Maugham, starring Dirk Bogarde; Diamond City (1949), So Long at the Fair (1950),[8] in which she again appeared with Dirk Bogarde; Green Grow the Rushes (1951),[8] alongside Roger Livesey and Richard Burton; A Night to Remember (1958),[8] an account of the Titanic disaster; the comedy The Square Peg (1958);[8] Life at the Top (1965) with Laurence Harvey;[8] The Virgin and the Gypsy (1970),[8] and the Western films Shalako (1968) with Sean Connery and Brigitte Bardot,[8] and Something Big (1971) with Dean Martin.

[9][10] Albert R. Broccoli said Blackman was cast opposite Sean Connery in the Bond film on the basis of her success in the British television series The Avengers.

[12] In the late 1970s, she toured Australia and New Zealand and Canada with Michael Craig and Colleen Clifford in the comedy play Move Over, Mrs Markham.

The production opened to rave reviews and the largest advance sale in British theatre history to that time.

From April to September 2007, Blackman took over the role of Fraulein Schneider in Cabaret at the Lyric Theatre in London's West End.

In an episode of The Saint titled "The Arrow of God" (1962), Blackman played an adulterous personal secretary named Pauline Stone, who became one of several suspects in the murder of a despised gossip columnist.

[17] In The Avengers from 1962 to 1964, she played Dr Cathy Gale, a self-assured, quick-witted anthropologist who was skilled in judo and had a passion for leather clothes.

In 1972, Blackman (as a special guest star) and Richard Basehart played a married pair of Shakespearean actors who commit murder in the American crime mystery series Columbo (episode "Dagger of the Mind").

In 2003, Blackman took a guest role on Midsomer Murders, as ex-racing driver Isobel Hewitt in the episode "A Talent for Life".

[25] Blackman also appeared in a number of episodes of Never the Twain with Donald Sinden and Windsor Davies as veterinarian Veronica Barton.

The song peaked at number five after being played incessantly by BBC Radio 1 breakfast-show presenter Simon Mayo.

[27] In 1968, Blackman released a 45 rpm record of "Before Today"/"I'll Always Be Loving You" (CBS 3896), which were featured in the musical play Mr & Mrs.[28] In 1983, she sang as Juno in a special TV production of Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in the Underworld.

[29] On 6 July 2009, Blackman released a new single, "The Star Who Fell from Grace", composed by Jeff Chegwin and Adrian Munsey.

[39] In 2012, Blackman publicly criticised actor Sean Connery, her Bond co-star in the 1960s, for his status as a tax exile.