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Lana Wood (Plenty O'Toole)
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Datastream
Actress: Lana Wood
Character: Plenty O'Toole
Movie: Diamonds Are Forever
Date of Birth: 1st March 1946
Place of Birth: Santa Monica, California, USA
Trivia: Sister of the ill-fated starlet Natalie Wood
Pleased To Meet You
James Bond bumps
into the delightfully candid Plenty O'Toole at a Las
Vegas
casino craps table. 007 places a comprehensive bet and
Plenty plays along, squandering a few of his chips
and charming her way into a romantic dinner for two.
Caught In The Act
After buying a seductive, candlelit dinner for the high-flying American gal,
Bond and O'Toole return to his suite, but before the pair retire, the suspicious
Shady Tree crashes their party and casually ejects the damsel from the third
floor window. |
"Hey, what the hell is this? A pervert's convention or something? Now listen, you can't do this to me! Stop that! I've got friends in this town!"
Profile
Bold and brash, Plenty O'Toole has a short yet memorable role
on the "Diamonds Are Forever" mission. Adapt
at charming rich and successful playboy types in order
to have a flutter with the gamblers' excess cash, Plenty
targets Bond with a cheeky greeting. The rapport between
the pair develops over a champaign dinner until the high-flying
Plenty takes a leap, landing in the hotel pool. She meets
a sticky end when she is mistaken for the diamond smuggler, Tiffany
Case. The damsel is tied to a concrete slab and left
for dead in Case's Vegas swimming pool.
Memorable Quotes
Plenty: Hi, I'm Plenty.
Bond: But of course you are.
Plenty: Plenty O'Toole.
Bond: Named after your father, perhaps?
Bond: Well, if you'd like to come in, Plenty.
Plenty: Oh, how pretty, what a super place you have!
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Bond: [playing craps] I'll take the full odds on the ten, two hundred on the hard way, the limit on all the numbers, two hundred and fifty on the eleven. Thank you very much.
Plenty: Say, you played this game before.
Extended Briefing
As well as the dinner between Bond and Plenty, a scene was cut from the film
showing Plenty walking in on Bond and Tiffany, and ultimately being fatally
mistaken for Case.
Biography
Born as Svetlana Zacharenko to Russian immigrant parents, her
parents changed their name to Gurdin when they migrated to the
US to Santa Monica, where Lana was born. As the
youngest of three
in the
family,
she followed in her sister's footsteps to become a child starlet
and appeared in pictures as early as 1947 - when she was just
one year old. She was 10 when Lana received her first onscreen
credit appearing in a western flick, "The Searchers" which
also starred her sister Natalie Wood and headlined the great
action hero, John Wayne.
"You handle those cubes like a monkey handles coconuts..." |
Their mother approved the sisters' stage name
be changed to "Wood", after director Sam Wood. As a
young star, she appeared in a string of TV bit parts including
roles in the western series "Have Gun - Will Travel", '50s
comedy "The Real McCoys" and David Janssen thriller "The
Fugitive".
Between the age of 16 and 21, Lana Wood was
married three times, each for a very short spell. First to Jack
Wrather Jr in '62; their relations were annulled the same year.
She was also married to Karl Brent in 1965 and actor Steve
Oliver two years later.
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In 1965, Wood landed a
regular role on the one-season drama, "The Long, Hot
Summer", in which she played Eula Harker. The show
ran until the following year, when she played as Sandi
Webber in a score of episodes of the sexy soap, "Peyton
Place".
Lana posed for Hefner's "Playboy" magazine,
after being approached by the editor himself. This prompted
a cameo in Sean Connery's return to the 007 series and
launched Wood from being a smiling child-star (often appearing
alongside her more recognisable sister) into a pop-icon
in her own right.
She reportedly had to stand on a box for her scenes with Sean Connery in the Bond adventure, as at 5' 3" she is a foot shorter than the 007 star.
Whilst filming "Diamonds Are Forever",
Wood was apparently romantically involved with its Scots
star. The relationship made for good publicity for the
production but was short lived and she married Richard
Smedley in 1973, at age 27. The couple had one daughter,
named Evan Taylor Maldonado, the following year. The marriage
ended in divorce some years later.
In the 1970s, she made a string of low-budget
films in between appearances in some well-loved TV series,
including "Mission Impossible", "Starsky
and Hutch" and "Fantasy Island" - which
starred three-foot Bond henchman, Hervé Villechaize.
In 1981, her sister drowned on a beach
in California under suspicious circumstances. The death
shocked her whole family and Lana took on the job of documenting
the life and works of her famous sister. Three years after
the passing of her sister, Lana published a tell-all memoir
of their relationship and doing so reportedly deeply displeased
the girls' parents.
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She later produced a biopic based on the life of her sister: "The
Mystery of Natalie Wood". More recently she has returned
to acting and has three films ready for release in 2009, as well
as a token few TV appearances in '08 and '09.
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