Tiffany Case is an American diamond smuggler in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Diamonds Are Forever.
Biography[]
Diamonds Are Forever[]
Tiffany was a posthumous child, as her father had been killed at the Battle of Iwo Jima during the Second World War. Prior to his death, he learned he had impregnated his wife and expressed his joy at the child to come by giving his wife a bottle of perfume he had purchased at Tiffany's. When the baby girl was born, her mother named her Tiffany in honour of this. Some time during her childhood, her mother passed away, leaving Tiffany with no living relatives. It is revealed that Tiffany was gang raped in her youth, causing her strong elements of resentment towards men. She later became a vagrant, until she achieved acclaim for saving a drowning boy. She was then briefly taken in by an affectionate elderly woman in the area.
As a full-grown woman, Tiffany became a card dealer and worked in casinos, where the American Mafia educated her in gambling. Later, she became a diamond smuggler working as a fence for "The Spangled Mob," a ruthless American gang who are smuggling diamonds from Sierra Leone through an international pipeline with headquarters in both Britain and The United States.
James Bond contacts her in London using the identity of petty crook Peter Franks, and despite Tiffany's antipathy towards men, the two ultimately become lovers.Tiffany turns against her former partners in Spectreville, and helps Bond escape from their clutches. She then grows close to Bond, and he becomes the first man she voluntarily has a relationship with. She then informs Bond of the gang and diamond smuggling ring which is relayed to M in London. Tiffany is later kidnapped by Mr. Wint & Mr. Kidd on board the Queen Elizabeth in the Atlantic, but she is rescued by Bond.
From Russia with Love[]
After this adventure, she came to London and the two briefly live together at James Bond's flat, but, like many of Bond's women, she is out of his life by the next novel, From Russia, with Love. Fleming explains her departure therein. He explains that Bond, by his own admission, is difficult to live with in a domestic setting, and she returned to the United States and went back to something close to her previous life. The explanation was somewhat unusual both because Fleming rarely even mentions Bond girls for more than one book, and because for the first time since Casino Royale, Bond actually seemed emotionally affected at the dissolution of a relationship.
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