Barbara Bach

Barbara Bach (born Barbara Goldbach, now styled "Lady Starkey" according to the British system) is an American actress and model known as the Bond girl/Russian spy Anya Amasova (Agent Triple X) from the 1977 Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. She has been married to former Beatle Ringo Starr since 1981.

Biography[]

Barbara Goldbach was born in the Queens neighborhood of Rosedale in New York City, born to Howard Irwin Goldbach, a police officer of European Jewish heritage, and Marjorie Mary McKnight, an Irish housewife. Barbara has a younger sister, and two brothers, one a year older than her, and one a year younger. In 1964, she graduated from the all-girl Dominican Commercial High School in Jamaica, Queens. The following year, she shortened her surname to Bach and began modelling professionally, appearing in catalogues and fashion magazines.

Bach remarked after the film that Bond is "a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets."^[1]

Trivia[]

Bach was lucky to get the role after Lois Chiles, whom producer Albert R. Broccoli originally wanted to play Anya Amasova, rejected the part because she was temporarily retired from acting after receiving some harsh criticism. Chiles went on to become the Bond girl in Moonraker.
Bach's character, Anya Amasova, is one of the only people in the James Bond film series who has referred to the character Q by the name of "Major Boothroyd", his official title.
Bach appeared in three films throughout the mid-late 1970s with the enormous actor Richard Kiel, who played the henchman Jaws in The Spy Who Loved Me. They both also appeared in Force 10 from Navarone in 1978 (starring Robert Shaw and Harrison Ford) and in the The Humanoid in 1979.
With her portrayal of Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me, Bach became the first American film star to appear in a James Bond film as a Russian character, a feat that would be repeated 44 years later by Rami Malek, who portrayed the main antagonist Lyutsifer Safin in No Time to Die.
The gun that Bach uses as Anya Amasova is a .25 caliber Beretta Model 950 Jetfire in stainless steel finish.