Daniela Bianchi is an Italian actress, Born January 31, 1942

 

Daniela Bianchi is an Italian actress,

Born January 31, 1942

Born January 31, 1942 in Rome, Lazio, Italy

Height 5' 7" (1.7 m)

Mini Bio (1)

Daniela Bianchi is an Italian actress, best known for her role of Bond girl Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love (1963). She Finished 1st Runner Up in Miss Universe 1960 Competition, enough to get the attentions of Bond movie producers who chose her over 200 female prospects for the role of Tatiana Romanova.

Bianchi made a number of French and Italian movies after From Russia with Love (1963), the last being The Last Chance (1968). One of her later films was Operation Kid Brother (1967), which was a James Bond spoof filmed in English (though Bianchi was again dubbed) and starring Sean Connery's brother, Neil Connery.

In 2012, Bianchi appeared in a small role in the documentary film We're Nothing Like James Bond.

- IMDb Mini Biography By: Pedro Borges

Spouse (1)

Alberto Cameli (1970 - 2018) ( his death) ( 1 child)

Trivia (12)

Winner of Miss Rome 1960, she later was a first runner-up in that year's Miss Universe contest.

Her voice was dubbed in From Russia with Love (1963); she spoke almost no English and spoke her lines phonetically. Her heavy Italian accent made much of her dialogue difficult to understand, so an English-speaking Italian actress whose accent wasn't so pronounced was hired to re-record her lines.

Appeared opposite Sean Connery in the James Bond classic From Russia with Love (1963) , and opposite his younger brother, Neil Connery, in Operation Kid Brother (1967) (a.k.a., "Operation Kid Brother") four years later.

Has a son, Filippo, from her marriage to Alberto Cameli, the president of an Italian cargo shipping company.

She is the youngest to play the role of "Main Bond Girl" at the age of 21.

She beat out more than 200 girls for the leading lady role in the James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), including Tania Mallet (who later landed a role in another James Bond film Goldfinger (1964)), Elga Andersen, Pia Lindström(Ingrid Bergman's daughter), Magda Konopka, and Sylva Koscina.

James Bond screenwriter Richard Maibaum said that she was his favorite Bond girl, because she made the most implausible plot line in From Russia with Love (1963) plausible and that she made the bedroom scene with Sean Connery very sexy. He also recalled that she didn't really want to be an actress, since she read Italian novels and ate chocolates on the set. However, he admired her ability to shrug and laugh off at director Terence Young's insults. Young found her walk to be awkward and her hips to be wide, so he shot her scenes from the waist up.

As a young girl, she studied ballet. But as she grew into womanhood, she became more voluptuous and couldn't continue with her dream of being a ballet dancer.

She was the first main James Bond girl to appear on the cover of "TV Guide" ( Nov. 7, 1964) with Richard Chamberlain, the star of Dr. Kildare (1961). She played Chamberlain's love interest on a 3-part episode of the show titled "Rome Will Never Leave You". The other main Bond girls who followed her by appearing on covers of "TV Guide" are: Diana Rigg, Jane Seymour, Maryam d'Abo, Carey Lowell, Denise Richards, and Halle Berry.

She remains the only Italian actress to play a main James Bond girl, although she played a Russian in From Russia with Love (1963). Other Italian actresses, such as Luciana Paluzzi and Monica Bellucci, played secondary roles in the later James Bond films.

She came from a prominent Italian family. Her father was a retired army colonel, and her grandmother was a marchesa (an Italian noblewoman ranking above a countess and below a princess).

In 1964, she was living in an apartment in Rome and also had a beach house in Sirolo. She owned a sports car and enjoyed swimming and horseback riding. Her friends in Italy were not show business people, but mostly architects, engineers, and executives. She did have a great ambition to be a star in America, but her limited English skills, along with her fear of driving in Los Angeles hurt her chances.