Giulietta da Vinci, listed in the film credits as Cigar Girl, is a beautiful Italian assassin in the 1999 film The World Is Not Enough. She was portrayed by Italian actress Maria Grazia Cucinotta.
Film biography
The Cigar Girl first appears entering an office in Bilbao, Spain, carrying a box of cigars. She offers a cigar to James Bond and her employer, a Swiss banker, Mr. Lachaise. Bond is there retrieving money for Sir Robert King, a British Oil tycoon and friend of M. As she hands him a receipt for the money, she asks Bond if he would like to check her figures. Bond pauses and looks up as she is bending down. He responds, "Oh, I'm sure they are perfectly rounded." She is wearing an all black business suit type dress, with a low cut plunging top. When she is seated in a chair she shows off her very sexy nylon covered crossed legs.
Bond overpowers Lachaise's bodyguards and holds him at gunpoint. Just as Bond is about to get the name of an assassin, Lachaise is killed by a thrown knife in his neck by an escaping Cigar Girl. Bond and the girl both escape from the building.
In a deleted scene of the film, we find that the Cigar Girl is actually working for Renard, and she reveals that Bond on the case. Renard gives her the task of taking him out, and says that he trusts she won't let him down. She was also told to allow Bond to escape the original attack in Spain, so that the bomb would be delivered to MI6 headquarters.
Giulietta tries to kill Bond
Bond returns to MI6 headquarters in London, England in order to return the money to Sir Robert King. However, the money was actually a fertilizer bomb which kills King and blows a hole in the wall of the building. Through a hole in the wall, 007 spots the Cigar Girl, who is watching the building from a Sunseeker boat on the River Thames. Cigar Girl is wearing a red leather body suit with a zipper down the front. She uses a machine gun to fire at Bond and then takes off down the Thames, with Bond pursuing in a prototype Q-Boat. An elaborate chase takes place along the Thames, and it ends at the Millennium Dome. Cigar Girl uses a grenade launcher as well. Just as two torpedoes are about to blow up her boat, she beaches her boat near the Millennium Dome, and jumps onto a hot air balloon basket. Bond follows closely by, and jumps to catch the mooring ropes to the balloon.
Giulietta causing the balloon to explode in a huge fireball
Bond offers her protection from her real boss, but she refuses, asserting that Bond cannot protect her from "him". She then commits suicide by shooting the aircraft's gas tank, causing the balloon to explode in a huge fireball. Bond releases from the rope and falls onto the roof of the Millennium Dome, hurting his shoulder on the landing. This injury hampers him throughout the rest of the film. We later learn in the film that she was working for Renard or his full name, Victor Zokas. She was hired to keep an eye on Mr. Lachaise.
Novelization biography
In the novel adaptation of The World Is Not Enough, then-current Bond novelist Raymond Benson gave the Cigar Girl a name: Giulietta da Vinci, and retained a scene between her and Renard in Bilbao that was cut from the theatrical release.
Trivia
- In the film, Giulietta is the only identified female member of Renard's crew. However, in early treatments of the film's script, it was shown that Renard had several female minions in his inner circle. In one draft of the script, the scene that would ultimately become Renard's entrance at the Devil's Breath cave was originally written as a much more sordid encounter. The scene was to have originally taken place at Zukovsky's Casino, in a champagne lounge (an environment that was reminiscent of Zukovsky's club in GoldenEye) where Davidov would attempt to solicit a prostitute. The prostitute would then reveal herself as one of Renard's assassins as Renard and his men would appear from out of the shadows and ambush Davidov.
.jpg "Giulietta da Vinci (image promotional 2).jpg (256 KB)")
.jpg "Giulietta da Vinci (image promotional 3).jpg (152 KB)")
