Actress: Gayle Hunnicutt
Born: February 6, 1943 (Fort Worth, Texas, USA)
Film: "Live And Let Die" (1973)
Role: Solitaire
American actress Gayle Hunnicutt, then aged
30, was the first choice for the role of Solitaire in "Live
And Let Die" after
the part had been re-written for a white actress. Screenwriter
Tom Mankiewicz originally
(very loosely) adapted Ian
Fleming's novel with Solitaire
being African-American - specifically, Diana Ross. But pressure
from United Artists for a 'safe script', despite the blaxploitation
trend at the time, forced the racial flip with the Rosie Carver
role.
Hunnicutt would have become the first Bond girl
of the Roger Moore era had it not been for her pregnancy. Hunnicutt
married
British actor David Hemmings a few years earlier in 1968 and
the couple later had a son, the future actor Nolan Hemmings.
From her film debut in 1966's "Marlowe" until she
left Hollywood in 1969, Hunnicutt was typecast as a brunette
sexpot. After she moved to England with Hemmings in 1970, Hunnicutt
was able to use the finer range of her acting, including: a notable
role as Charlotte Stant, in Jack Pulman's adaptation of Henry
James's novel "The Golden Bowl", Lionel's wife in "The
Legend of Hell House" and Tsarina Alexandra in "Fall
of Eagles". Hunnicutt returned to the United States in 1989,
where she played the role of Vanessa Beaumont in Dallas until
1991.
Despite missing out on her Bond Girl role, Hunnicutt
had a couple of brushes with other franchises connected with
Roger Moore.
She appeared in the 1984 TV series "The Adventures of Sherlock
Holmes" and twice with The Saint, in the 1979 episode "The
Saint and the Brave Goose" and also the 1989 TV movie "The
Saint: The Brazilian Connection." A British citizen, Hunnicutt
now splits here time between the English countryside and Florida.
