Jill Masterton
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| Jill Masterson | |
|---|---|
| Character from the James Bond franchise | |
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| Affiliation | Auric Goldfinger |
| Relatives | Tilly Masterton (sister) |
| Portrayed by | Shirley Eaton |
Jill Masterton is a fictional character in Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Goldfinger. For the film adaptation both she and her sister Tilly had their surname changed to Masterson. Jill Masterson was played by Shirley Eaton.
In the film, Jill is a paid spy, working for Auric Goldfinger. She appeared in the film for no more than five minutes, but her death in the film — she is painted head-to-toe in gold paint — remains one of the most iconic scenes in movie history.
Shirley Eaton's Jill Masterson had a great effect on Bond audiences and the media, and she can often be found on viewers "top 10 Bond Girl" forums. The news website "Time" rated Jill Masterson as one of the top ten Bond Girls, rating her alongside Ursula Andress' Honey Ryder (Dr. No), Eva Green's Vesper Lynd (Casino Royale) and Honor Blackman's Pussy Galore (Goldfinger).
[edit] Film Biography
When James Bond enters Goldfinger's suite at Miami's Fontainebleau Hotel, he discovers Goldfinger's paid companion Jill Masterson on the balcony with binoculars. She is telling Goldfinger, via radio, which cards are held by Mr. Simmons in a game of gin rummy, enabling Goldfinger to cheat. When questioned by Bond, Jill states that her relationship with Goldfinger is purely professional.
Bond takes over the radio link and commands Goldfinger to start losing his ill-gotten gains. Impressed, Jill accepts Bond's invitation to dinner at his hotel suite, seeing Bond as an escape from a job she hates. Her feelings of liberation prove tragically short lived, however; Goldfinger's manservant Oddjob enters the room and knocks Bond unconscious. When Bond comes to, he finds Jill dead, painted from head to toe in gold leaf. Bond later learns that she died from skin asphyxiation.
The bizarre nature of her death is explained as "skin suffocation," a condition experienced by some cabaret dancers. The risk of actually dying from such a condition is a myth, as proven in an episode of the Discovery Channel's MythBusters and mentioned in the Book Geschüttelt, nicht gerührt by Metin Tolan.
She is the very first Bond girl to be killed off.
The year the film was released, actress Shirley Eaton appeared on the front cover of Life magazine, which began the worldwide buzz about her, her character and her death sequence. Due to the scene becoming iconic to the film, in the twenty-second Bond film Quantum of Solace, lead Bond Girl Strawberry Fields (played by Gemma Arterton) is killed in the same manner, gold being substituted for oil (in homage to the term "Black Gold"), by the film's villain, an oil profiteer.
[edit] Role in novel
In the novel, Jill plays a slightly larger part. After Goldfinger's humiliation, Jill and Bond make love as they take an overnight train up the coast. Bond does not learn of her death until he meets Tilly Masterton, Jill's sister, in Switzerland. The film's version of events allows Goldfinger to exact revenge more promptly and dramatically, and Bond gets to discover the striking image of a woman covered in paint.
