Ursula Andress

The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a strict German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had an impetuous desire to explore the world outside Switzerland. (For instance, she was tracked down by Interpol for running away from boarding school at 17 years old.) The stunning young woman found work as an art model in Rome and did walk-ons in three quickie Italian features before coming to Hollywood. At 19, she met fading matinée idol John Derek, who left his first wife and two children to marry Ursula in 1957, despite the fact that she only spoke a few words of English at the time, and persuaded the new bride to put her acting ambitions on hold for a few years thereafter.The year 1962 saw the virtually unknown Swiss beauty back on the set, playing a small role in the first movie version of Ian Fleming's fanciful "James Bond" espionage novels, Dr. No (1962), opposite Sean Connery. Due to the heaviness of her Swiss/German accent, Andress' entire performance had to be dubbed by a voiceover artist. Nevertheless, her striking beauty and smoldering screen presence made a strong impression on moviegoers, immediately establishing her as one of the most desired women in the world and as an ornament to put on-screen alongside some of the most bankable talent of the era, such as Elvis Presley in Fun in Acapulco (1963) and Dean Martin in 4 for Texas (1963). In 1965, she was one of several European starlets to co-star in What's New Pussycat (1965) -- a film that perhaps sums up mid-'60s pop culture better than any other -- written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.Andress appeared in many more racy-for-their time movies in both the United States and Europe, including La decima vittima (1965), in which she wore a famously ballistic bra, and The Blue Max (1966), where she was aptly cast as the sultry, sexually insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general. She was also featured in Casino Royale (1967), a satirical foray into the world of James Bond, and gave a sparkling performance in the crime caper Perfect Friday (1970). Roles as a prostitute kidnapped by outlaws in Soleil rouge (1971) and a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in L'infermiera (1975) provided plenty of excuses to throw her clothes to the wind, and she was notoriously stripped and slathered in orange paint by a pair of nubiles in La montagna del dio cannibale (1978), before taking on the role of King Louis XIV's alluring mistress in The Fifth Musketeer (1979) .Unmarried since 1966 (she divorced Derek after falling in love with French actor Jean-Paul Belmondo on the Malaysian set of Les tribulations d'un Chinois en Chine (1965)), Andress played the field for years, reportedly involved at various times with a host of lovers including (but by no means limited to) Dennis Hopper, Ryan O'Neal, Marcello Mastroianni and Fabio Testi. In 1979, she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Clash of the Titans (1981) (in which she was cast, predictably, as "Aphrodite"). While subsequently traveling in India, Andress' belly began to swell out of her clothing, and she felt very nauseous. What at first seemed a severe case of "Delhi Belly" turned out to be pregnancy, her first and only, at age 43. She and Hamlin named the child, who was born in 1980, Dimitri Hamlin.After the birth of her son, Andress scaled back her career, which now focused mostly on slight European films and occasional television roles, as she was raising Dimitri in Rome. Her relationship with Hamlin ended in 1983, and she last worked on a film in 2005. Ursula divides her time between family in Switzerland, friends in Spain and Virginia, and her properties in California and Italy. Show less «