Bond girl Luciana Paluzzi still has signature scarlet hair at 89

Former Bond girl Luciana Paluzzi made a splash in the 1965 film Thunderball.

The 89-year-old Italian actress depicted the SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe in the blockbuster, which starred Sean Connery, Claudine Auger, and Martine Beswick among others.

The movie saw her transform into a glamorous femme fatale who seduced agent 007 as a trap to take him prisoner at gunpoint. 

Born in Rome, she began her movie career, which spanned Europe and the US, in the 1950s.

Paluzzi exited Hollywood in the late 70s, marrying media mogul Michael Jay Solomon in 1979.

She was recently spotted on a rare outing in Los Angeles, unmissable as she continued to flaunt her signature red hair.

Former Bond girl Luciana Paluzzi made a splash in the 1965 film Thunderball

The 89-year-old Italian actress depicted the SPECTRE agent Fiona Volpe in the blockbuster

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The former actress was casually dressed in dark trousers, a white shirt, and a navy blue cardigan with white stripes.

She wore a white purse crossbody-style while out and about by herself.

The Daily Mail has reached out to a representative for Paluzzi to request comment. 

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Her early career included American movies like Return to Peyton Place and British projects like the World War II drama No Time to Die.

The latter was released in 1958, decades before there was a Bond film of the same name.

She was active in European cinema, including the 1956 Brigitte Bardot comedy Plucking the Daisy and the 1959 Italian romp My Wife’s Enemy with Marcello Mastroianni.

They led to her achieving lasting fame as the leggy, sultry ᴀssᴀssin who tries to entice James Bond to his death in Thunderball. 

Although she initially auditioned for the leading lady Domino Petacchi, the part went to the aforementioned Auger, a French actress.

She was recently spotted on a rare outing in Los Angeles

Paluzzi was unmissable as she continued to flaunt her signature red hair

The former actress was casually dressed in dark trousers, a white shirt, and a navy blue cardigan with white stripes. She wore a white purse crossbody-style while out and about

She later revealed that she ‘rejoiced’ when she was cast as Fiona instead of Domino ‘because, actually, I thought that it was more fun to play.’ 

‘To do a Bond picture, it’s a blessing but also a curse,’ she reflected in a documentary about Bond girls, explaining, ‘Because when I went back to Italy, the directors that were the Fellinis, the Antonionis, the ones that were really important, the Viscontis of the time, they didn’t wanna have anything to do with me.’

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She elaborated: ‘They loved me. I knew them all and they were all very sweet and very nice, but when it came to do one of their pictures, no, because it was like a comic strip. But I worked for 27 years, so I can’t complain.’

Her post-Bond career included American films like the western Chuka with Rod Taylor and the blaxploitation film Black Gunn.

There was also the prison drama 99 Women and the US-Japanese sci-fi film The Green Slime.

Paluzzi went on to work with Thunderball director Terence Young on War Goddess and the drama The Klansman.

In Europe, her movies included the 1975 Italian Sєx comedy L’Infermiera (The Nurse), which starred her alongside fellow Bond girl Ursula Andress.