Shirley Eaton (born January 12 1937) was a glamorous blonde actress who appeared in many British black and white comedies in the fifties and onwards.

She was born in London. Throughout her career, she has appeared with many of the main British male comedy stars from the period including Jimmy Edwards, Max Bygraves, Bob Monkhouse and Arthur Askey. Her female co-stars included Peggy Mount , Thora Hird and Dora Bryan among others. In any British film featuring comedy actors like Kenneth Connor she's liable to turn up as the glamorous love interest.

Early roles include Three Men In A Boat (1956) and Date with Disaster (1957), starring with American Tom Drake. She also worked with The Crazy Gang in Life Is a Circus (1958). Later she starred in an entertaining version of Ten Little Indians (1965), co-starring American singer and actor Fabian. She also appeared in several early Carry On films, but did little TV work.

However, undoubtedly Eaton's most famous role was that of Jill Masterson in the 1964 James Bond film Goldfinger. Her character's demise, being painted head to toe in gold paint and suffering "skin suffocation", became an iconic image of the film and inadvertantly lead to the creation of an urban legend concerning both the method of death and the actress' own fate. Ms. Eaton, very much alive, later appeared in a 2003 episode of the TV documentary series Mythbusters to help debunk the legend.

External links

• Snopes.com article concerning Goldfinger urban legend