Holly Goodhead

Background

A former NASA astronaut, astrophysicist and Vassar College graduate, Dr Goodhead does not appear in Fleming's 1955 novel; screenwriter Christopher Wood created her for the screen, with thematic echoes of the book's heroine Gala Brand. She works undercover at Drax Industries as an astronaut and researcher while investigating Hugo Drax for the CIA, and meets Bond when she gives him a tour of Drax's California facility. After crossing paths again in Venice and Rio de Janeiro and surviving an assassination attempt by Jaws, the distrustful agents pool their intelligence.

Captured by Drax's forces, they escape aboard the shuttle Moonraker 6, which Goodhead pilots into orbit because Bond lacks the training. On Drax's space station they disable the radar cloaking device so a United States Marine Corps space platoon can board, and with a reformed Jaws they thwart Drax's scheme to eradicate humanity with nerve gas; Goodhead then pilots the armed Moonraker 5 to destroy the remaining toxin globes before they enter the atmosphere. The film closes with their superiors catching them on a live video link and Goodhead asking Bond to take her around the world one more time. She also appears briefly in the 2012 game 007 Legends, voiced by Jane Perry.

Eon had first approached Chiles for Anya Amasova in The Spy Who Loved Me, which she declined during a hiatus from acting; director Lewis Gilbert later sat next to her on a commercial flight and offered her Goodhead. Wood gave her scientific credentials and combat training so that she could be Bond's equal, and James Chapman reads the partnership as an image of the Anglo-American Special Relationship, though critics have long noted the gap between her qualifications and her double-entendre name.