Just back from Tallahassee, where we spent a fun-filled weekend exploring Florida’s sunny, green state capital, I checked my e-mail at home last night and found my box flooded with announcements of the Saturday death of Lois Hooker Maxwell Marriott.

Better known to legions of James Bond film fans the world over as Lois Maxwell, the Canadian actress originated the role of “Miss Moneypenny,” secretary to Bond’s boss “M.” A rabid smoker, she passed away from cancer at a hospital in Australia.

(No, she was most certainly NOT 007’s secretary, as some suggest. That was Mary Goodnight, portrayed in the 1974 Bond film, “The Man With the Golden Gun,” by Swedish actress Britt Ekland. Prior to Mary Goodnight, Bond’s secretary was Leola Ponsonby, who retired from the Secret Service midway through Ian Fleming’s book series to get married.)

With my good friend, lifelong Dallasite and fellow 007 buff Clyde Ponder, I had the sheer delight of hosting Mrs. Maxwell in November 1985 during her second visit to New Orleans. (She got food poisoning during her first visit many years before that!) As a longtime enthusiast of the James Bond books and films, I was giddily nervous upon meeting her at the airport, as after all, it’s not every day one gets to meet and escort an internationally renowned actress, let alone one intimately connected to a favorite film series.

By the time we had whisked her to Tulane University, where she was to appear at a reception that evening and would speak after a screening of her last Bond film the next night, the visit became more like a fun couple of days with a favorite auntie. The barrier between somewhat awestricken fans and movie star dissolved rapidly during the 20-minute ride from the airport.

Chain-smoking along the way (the only person I ever allowed to smoke in one of my cars), Mrs. Maxwell accidentally missed the ashtray and burned a hole in the armrest of Das Boot, my semi-restored 1974 Lincoln Continental Mark IV, which, in her “Moneypenny” column for the Toronto Star, she described as a “rickety behemoth.” She was simply aghast and offered at once to pay for the damage. I refused and her “signature” was a mark of honor for the rest of my ownership of Das Boot. (The car was finally creamed by the Broad Street bus the following Mardi Gras. New Orleans bus service had to buy it off me.)

After freshening up and dinner in the French Quarter, Mrs. Maxwell joined our friends, Tulane students and fans from the community at the Tulane University Center in observance of James Bond’s 65th birthday. (He was born on 11 November 1920, according to a “biography” of 007 written by John Pearson) During the course of the evening, our friend Lance Spencer, an Air Force ROTC student, ceremoniously presented Mrs. Maxwell with a saber (borrowed from a Navy ROTC friend as the Air Force doesn’t have a saber tradition) drawn from the belt of his natty dress uniform, with which she sliced the Union Jack-emblazoned cake.

As Mrs. Maxwell had expressed an interest in taking a Mississippi River cruise as well as seeing New Orleans’ award-winning Audubon Zoo, we combined the two the next day, and with Clyde and Lance in tow, off we went up the river. Along the way a gentleman sitting near us on the boat’s upper deck kept casting furtive glances at our guest. As we disembarked at the Audubon Park landing, he slipped up next to us and gave Mrs. Maxwell his business card. “You’ll note we’re in the same business,” he said with a smile. He was a U.S. Secret Service agent in town scouting locations for an upcoming vice-presidential visit.

Come lunchtime, Mrs. Maxwell insisted on buying us lunch. “I always buy my children hotdogs and ice cream at the zoo,” she explained. We enjoyed a sunny, warm New Orleans fall day in the company of exotic critters of various description as our friend took notes for her newspaper column.

That evening Lois Maxwell got pleasantly buzzed at a Cajun restaurant in preparation for her speech at Tulane. Using the theme “The Woman Behind 007,” she related stories of her extensive film career, leading up to her association with Eon Productions and the world’s most successful continuing film franchise. During her presentation she made “quick work,” as she described it in her column, “of a friendly heckler” who asked impertinent questions about Bond’s relationship with Miss Moneypenny.

Before landing the role of Miss Moneypenny—a casting decision lauded by Ian Fleming—she had won a Golden Globe for her performance in the Shirley Temple film “That Hagen Girl,” and had played opposite Sophia Loren in “Aïda.” She took the Moneypenny part to get some extra money to aid her husband, who was seriously ill and undergoing expensive medical care.

While the rest is film history—she appeared in every Sean Connery and Roger Moore James Bond film—Lois Maxwell ended up being typecast. To supplement her income between 007 films, she diversified from acting and at one point was president of Great Barrier Industries, a Canadian manufacturer of crowd control barricades. (Sniffing at the ubiquitous New Orleans Police Department barricades, familiar to any Mardi Gras attendee, she commented, “Mine are much better.”).

She also accepted roles that parodied Miss Moneypenny. Notably, she starred as a spy in the Italian spoof “Operation Kid Brother,” which starred Sean Connery’s younger brother Neil as a distinguished physician. “The poor man,” sighed Lois Maxwell. “He just couldn’t act.” In fact, Neil’s Scots accent was so thick that he was undecipherable, and he ended up being dubbed by an American-accented actor. The film also starred other Bond film alumni Adolfo Celi (“Thunderball”), Bernard Lee (“M” in all the 007 films to date), and Daniela Bianchi (“From Russia With Love”).

Lois Maxwell also made occasional TV appearances, guest-starring in episodes of two Roger Moore pre-Bond series, “The Saint” and “The Persuaders.” She and Moore were classmates in the 1940s at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts. “We really were old buddies,” Mrs. Maxwell reminisced when I interviewed her before her New Orleans visit.

Interviewed this past weekend on BBC Radio 5, Sir Roger Moore said, “She was always fun and she was wonderful to be with. She was absolutely perfect casting,” he said of her role as Miss Moneypenny. “It was a great pity that, after I moved out of Bond, they didn’t take her on to continue in the Timothy Dalton films. I think it was a great disappointment to her that she had not been promoted to play M. She would have been a wonderful M.” (The role since 1995 has been played by Dame Judi Dench.)

On her last day in New Orleans, Clyde, Lance (who today is a colonel in the U.S. Air Force) and I took Lois Maxwell to a Sunday jazz brunch before we went shopping at the famous French Market so she could buy a bag of pecans to take back for her daughter. Suddenly we realized it was getting close to her departure time. “We tore at tremendous speed” to the airport, she related in her column, but missed her flight. But Clyde magically got her on another connection and we bid a fond farewell to our new friend.

It was the only time I ever met Lois Maxwell, but we occasionally kept in touch for a few years. I understand she had moved to South Africa so she could be with her son, and subsequently wound up in Australia with him. The original, true Miss Moneypenny, she will be sorely missed by those who enjoyed her delightful company. It’s a big border she crossed at the hospital Down Under Saturday night, but it’s one we’ll all face sometime.

I’m sure she crossed it with the same grace and humor we enjoyed many years ago in New Orleans.

You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.