How Prince Philip saved James Bond (with a bit of help from the Express)

PRINCE Philip was enrolled on a secret mission to save James Bond’s box office fortunes from po-faced American film censors… and succeeded with the help of the Daily Express.

- Matthew Field and Ajay Chowdhury

Movie fans were saddened this month at the news of the death of Honor Blackman, who played the naughtily named Pussy Galore opposite Sean Connery in 1964’s Goldfinger.

But the movie was threatened with a ban in the United States after stuffy censors turned their noses up at the smutty double entendre.

So a plan was hatched to save Bond, with the publicity team enrolling the help of British royalty.

Honor was sent along to a London gala event – the Royal Film Performance of Doris Day film Move Over Darling in February 1964 – where she was photographed with Prince Philip, with the image appearing in newspapers around the world the following day.

Our sister paper The Daily Express was among those who covered the meeting, revealing how the Duke of Edinburgh had asked her if she could manage all the attention of working on Bond while he gave what was reported as an “expansive wave of the arm”.