“You’re a woman of many parts, Pussy.”
In the Ian Fleming novel Pussy Galore is a lesbian, which is why in the film she gives Bond the cold shoulder at first. Fleming based the character of Pussy Galore on neighbor, friend and lover Blanche Blackwell. Producers Harry Saltzman and Albert R. Broccoli were intent on getting Honor Blackman for the part of Pussy Galore. But to be available she’d have to quit her role as Cathy Gale on the hit TV series The Avengers. To help persuade her they had the actress’ ability to perform judo written into the script. Theodore Bikel and Titos Vandis were both screen tested for the title role of villain Goldfinger but Saltzman and Broccoli both wanted to cast Gert Fröbe after seeing him in a German thriller, Es Geschah Am Hellichten Tag (1958), where he played a psychopath and serial killer. The original choice for Bond’s car was not the Aston Martin DB5 but an E-Type Jaguar, which cost half as much. During the filming they used two prototypes of the new Aston Martin. After the film’s release sales of the sports car increased by fifty per cent. With the success of Goldfinger the producers never had to pay for a James Bond car again. The budget for Goldfinger was more than the budgets for the first two Bond films combined. It earned back what was then considered a big budget of $3 million in just the first two weeks and was a bona fide box-office blockbuster – allowing Sean Connery to negotiate 5% of the gross for all future Bond films. It even got into the Guiness Book of World Records as the fastest grossing picture in movie history when first released.
