Margaret Nolan - actor, artist and Goldfinger title sequence star - dies aged 76
Margaret Nolan, the actor best known for appearing in the title sequence for Goldfinger and for a string of appearances in TV shows in the 1960s and 70s, has died aged 76. Film-maker Edgar Wright, who directed Nolan in her final film role, in the forthcoming Last Night in Soho, reported the news on social media.
Nolan, who was born in 1943 in Somerset, first appeared on film under the name Vicky Kennedy in “glamour” shorts by the then notorious Harrison Marks, appearing in his naturist film It’s a Bare, Bare World. She soon graduated to more mainstream films, with a noticeable role in the Beatles film A Hard Day’s Night (as the girl accompanying Wilfrid Brambell in a casino), and the James Bond film Goldfinger, as the masseuse Dink. Nolan also appeared in Goldfinger’s celebrated title sequence, wearing a gold bikini and with images projected on her skin – though in the film itself it was Shirley Eaton who played Jill Masterson, the girl smothered to death by gold paint.
Margaret Nolan with Wilfrid Brambell in A Hard Day’s Night (1964). Photograph: United Archives GmbH/Alamy
Nolan quickly outgrew her glamour-model beginnings and forged a reputation as a performer of great likability, with small roles in films as varied as Witchfinder General, The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery, and the Marcel Carné drama Three Rooms in Manhattan. She also began a long association with the Carry On movie series, beginning in 1965 with a role as a secretary in Carry on Cowboy. She would go on to appear in five more, finishing up in 1974 with Carry on Dick.
At the same time, Nolan developed a prolific career in TV, with guest roles in a wide variety of programmes, including Spike Milligan’s Q, Budgie, Steptoe and Son, The Persuaders! and Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? After the mid-70s Nolan stepped back from screen acting, but did appear as the dancehall girl Effie in the celebrated TV adaptation of Brideshead Revisited in 1981.
Nolan went on to develop an interest in visual arts, and her piece My Divided Self – a cut-up collage of her own publicity stills – was included in the feminist exhibition Equals in 2013 in Manchester’s Blankspace gallery. In an interview in 2007, Nolan described her artworks as “the idea that I was there as this passive woman, being looked at, but behind it all, behind my eyes, of course I knew what was going on”.
Nolan also became involved in politically inflected theatre in the early 70s, influenced, she said, by her then husband Tom Kempinski’s experience of the 1968 “évènements” in Paris.