For all their efforts to make this film “down to earth”, though, producers could never have predicted the out-of-this-world rumours that would go flying shortly after For Your Eyes Only wrapped shooting.

The Sunday tabloid, “The News of the World” came out with a story claiming that one of the Bond girls was actually born as a man. The rumour grew and grew. One version even went so far as to claim that Roger Moore had performed a love scene with this transgendered Bond girl, and that Moore was quite miffed upon finding out what had happened.

Q. Did a transsexual appear on screen in For Your Eyes Only?

A. Yes. Model-turned-actress Caroline Cossey (whose professional name is Tula) was born with male sex organs on August 31, 1954 in Brooke, Norfolk, England, UK as Barry Kenneth Cossey. However, suffering from Klinefelter's syndrome (XXY chromosomes instead of the normal XY), Cossey was technically more female than male.

Growing up, Cossey claims to have even been mistaken for a girl more than once before making the decision to make the transition. Barry changed her name to Caroline in 1972, began taking female hormones, and had breast augmentation surgery. Throughout the early 1970s, she worked as a chorus girl and a topless dancer to raise money for her sex-reassignment surgery, which she finally underwent at Charing Cross Hospital in London in 1974.

Caroline Cossey’s modeling career took off even before having her sex-reassignment surgery because there was high demand for tall models (she stood at 6 feet tall). Post-op, she became a well-known fashion model, did various advertisements, and appeared on several magazines covers before being cast in 1980 for a role in For Your Eyes Only.

Q. Did Roger Moore perform a love scene with Caroline Cossey?

A. No. Caroline Cossey can only be called a “Bond girl” in the loosest sense. While she does appear on screen, it is only for a few brief seconds, and she has no lines in the film. As a matter of fact, she is not even listed in the film’s credits. Her appearance is during the scene in which Bond goes to Gonzoles’ villa in Madrid. She is one of the many unnamed girls at poolside.

Q. What happened to Caroline Cossey after For Your Eyes Only finished shooting?

A. After “The News of the World” revealed that Cossey was a transsexual, it severely disrupted her acting career; however, Cossey continued as a successful model for several years. She appeared in the music videos for Duran Duran’s “Rio” and for Power Station’s “Some Like It Hot”, and she has even made multiple appearances in Playboy magazine (the first openly “out” transsexual ever to do so).

Cossey was engaged to Count Glauco, an Italian national, in 1983, but under English law, she was still considered a male, and was therefore unable to marry. After fighting for equal rights for transsexuals, she married Elias Fattal in London on May 21, 1989. Unfortunately, Fallat left her shortly after the honeymoon ended, and he had the marriage annulled on June 11, 1989 on the grounds that the marriage was not legal since - again - the bride and groom had not been female and male, respectively. Finally, Cossey married Canadian comic book artist David Finch in 1992, and as of 2003, they were still married and living in Atlanta, GA, USA.

Caroline Cossey has written two autobiographies - “Tula: I am a Woman” (1982) and “My Story” (1991) - and as MI6 reported back in April, Cossey’s memoirs have been published as part of a new book entitled “Sexual Metamorphosis: An Anthology of Transsexual Memoirs” (2005).