In Egypt for 31st Cairo Film Festival, Bond Girl Maryam D’Abo speaks exclusively to Enigma’s Senior Editor Amy Mowafi about life as a silver screen icon. Meanwhile Egyptian fashion designer Heba Elawadi dresses D’Abo in never-before-seen pieces from her exotic debut collection ‘Hebz’, and her sister jewellery designer Hana Elawadi adds her flirty, feminine touch.
Bond Girl. The imagery is iconic, the connotations immediate. Two powerful words that speak of a Hollywood legacy and the definitive cinematic history of the femme fatale. Bond Girl. A synonym for raw ravishing sex appeal and bywords in breath-taking beauty. From Ursula Andrews to Halle Berry, the Bond Girl, or rather, the Bond woman, will always exemplify the aesthetic ideal of an era. And in 1987 that woman was willowy blonde Maryam D’Abo. Staring alongside Timothy Dalton in The Living Daylights, D’Abo will forever be known as Kara Milovy; the sweet, vulnerable cellist and sniper who naturally falls for Bond.
Two decades later, at Cairo’s Film Festival, D’Abo has lost none of that silver screen seductiveness – but it’s a subtle appeal the shimmers beneath the surface of a playfully bohemian exterior. When we meet she’s fresh off the Abercrombie & Kent Sun Boat III, an intimate Nile cruise experience along with the President of Montenegro and jewellery designer Dima Rashid, which she can’t stop raving about, “It was a wonderful group and the most wonderful boat,” she says. “My only criticism is that it was it was too short. Trying to see everything in two days makes it hard to get into that very special rhythm that’s unique to Luxor and Aswan.”
It’s her second visit to the Land of the Pyramids – the first was in 1989 – and this time she’s brought along her husband of four years, Hugh Hudson; the legendary British director behind epic blockbusters Chariots of Fire, The Legend of Tarzan and Lord of the Apes. Along with Matt Dillon and Harvey Keitel, Hudson opened this year’s Cairo film festival, and D’Abo is brimming with praise for the event. “It was very theatrical, just so wonderful,” she says. “Nothing like London where these things are often very sedate and dull.” Naturally they also put in a dazzling appearance at Naguib Sawiris’ famous after-party at the Mohamed Ali Palace, which D’Abo described as “magical.”
Today, wondering barefoot around our photographer’s studio, D’Abo oohs and aaahs excitedly at the beautiful breezy pieces that young fashion designer Heba Elawadi and her jewellery designing sister Hana have created especially for our shoot. “The clothes are just so delicate and feminine,” enthuses D’Abo. Her accent is English, but there’s an audible hint of the exotic; a sexy lilt that alludes to an upbringing in Paris and Geneva, a Dutch father and Georgian mother. “Lovely materials and great colours,” she continues, trying on an exquisitely exotic Alladin-ish creation. “And the jewellery is so beautifully simple yet immediately noticeable. To be honest I was a bit worried because my experience of Arab women is that they really over dress; you know, big hair, big makeup, but these pieces are just so incredible
And it’s amazing to see these two young Egyptian women creating a business like this. I could never have done something like this at their age.”
Which is not strictly true. At their age, D’Abo, a graduate of London’s Drama Centre, had just made her big screen debut in the British science fiction film Xtro and was on the verge of becoming part of Hollywood history. “I remember the publicist on the Bond film telling me that people would recognise me as a Bond girl for the rest of my life,” says D’Abo, “But I thought, ‘no way’. Yet in England I still get recognised, even at the dry cleaners. It’s amazing because it’s been nearly 20 years. But at the end of the day you’re just an actress. I was playing a part and it’s not like I wake up in the morning thinking ‘I’m iconic, I’m a Bond Girl.’”
She might not wake up in the morning thinking it, but it’s the lens through which the rest of the world, and certainly the Hollywood establishment continues to perceive her. Which can be as suffocating as it is thrilling; a double edged sword with which many a Bond Girl has had to grapple. “There was a period when it was tough being a Bond Girl,” she says. “People assume you can’t be or do anything else and a lot of careers have been hampered because of that. So for a time I really needed to get away from that persona.” In the process of “getting away” D’Abo did a lot of American TV series, including the science-fiction TV miniseries Something is Out There and the small screen adaptation of Dr. Zhivago in which she played Keira Knightley’s mother. She also had a much-applauded supporting role as a pretentious stained-glass artist in the quirky, British comedy Leon the Pig Farmer. However she’s the first to admit that nothing came close “to the international recognition I got from being a Bond Girl.”
So eventually D’Abo decided to simply succumb and explore the intrigue of the Bond Girl mythology for herself. In 2002 she co-wrote the book Bond Girls Are Forever, later co-producing and presenting the critically acclaimed documentary of the same title. Along the way she has found peace with the fact that she too will forever be a Bond Girl. And surely there are far worse things in life than to forever be perceived as an icon of pure unadulterated sex appeal. As she says, “It’s like being part of a very special club. It’s a fantasy people have that they simply can’t let go of.”