Biography

Brunette bombshell and second-string goddess Jamaican actress Martine Beswick(e) was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica to a British father and Portuguese/Jamaican mother . Following her parent's separation in 1954, her mother moved to London with Martine and her younger sister Laurellie. In 1955, Martine left school to work to help support her family. Some brief modeling and pageant entering came to be before seeking a career in films. She allegedly once won a "Miss Autoville" contest and won a car only to sell it in order to move to and study acting in London.

While finding roles on such British TV series as "Secret Agent," "Love Story" and "Court Martial," a minor break occurred for Martine in the James Bond "007" film series. Director Terence Young cast her twice -- as the gypsy girl Zora in From Russia with Love (1963) and then as the doomed spy Paula in Thunderball (1965). After playing in the well-tanned minority ranks for years, Martine finally got noticed after cat-fighting with Raquel Welch in the cult prehistoric saga One Million Years B.C. (1966), which also starred handsome caveman John Richardson. She also starred in her own back-in-time Neanderthal low-budget Prehistoric Women (1967).

Transporting herself to Hollywood in the late 1960's, Martine guested on such shows as "It Takes a Thief," "Mannix," "The Name of the Game" and "Longstreet." She then made an infamous mark as the distaff evil incarnate in the Hammer Studio horror cult hit Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971). Other films during that time usually had her in various stages of sexy undress, including Ultimo tango a Zagarol (1973), The Kiss of Death (1974) and Seizure (1974).

She later focused on TV with such mini-movie entries as Crime Club (1975), Strange New World (1975), Devil Dog: The Hound of Hell (1978), My Husband Is Missing (1978) and The Tenth Month (1979), plus the mini-series Aspen (1977) and episodes of "The Six Million Dollar Man," "Baretta," "Quincy," "The Fall Guy," "Fantasy Island," "Hart to Hart," "Buffalo Bill" and "Sledge Hammer." In the mid-1980's, Martine also found back-to-back daytime work on the soap operas Days of Our Lives (1965) and Santa Barbara (1984).

On film, she would quicken pulses as Xaviera Hollander as The Happy Hooker Goes Hollywood (1980), but not return until the early 1990's with the horror films Evil Spirits (1991) and Trancers II (1991), the comedy Life on the Edge (1992) and the drama Wide Sargasso Sea (1993). After filming Night of the Scarecrow (1995), Martine retired from films.

Since then, she has mainly participated in film documentaries, providing commentary and relating her experiences on the many films in which she has appeared. She owned a removals business in London and is semiretired except for guest appearances at James Bond conventions. She did, however, more recently return (after 25 years) to star with fellow Hammer actors Caroline Munro and Veronica Carlson in a horror "tribute" to Hammer entitled House of the Gorgon (2019).
- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh

I always go into my films with absolute and complete commitment, and there was never the same commitment from the other people involved. And so I put my all into it, and it's a little frustrating because what comes out is not what I put in.

[on the filming of Prehistoric Women (1967)] We giggled a lot on the set. It was probably the silliest film ever made.

[on appearing in Billy Joel's 'We Didn't Start the Fire' music video]: It was really bizarre. I have no idea. I was supposed to be, I don't even know what I was supposed to be like the mother from hell. I still have no idea what it was all about, but he was very nice, and I liked his music, and it's still playing. And every now and again, someone says, 'Oh my God, you're in...' I said, 'Yeah, I know. I know'.

[on being in Oliver Stone's directorial debut film 'Seizure']: I love that film. I loved it because it's crazy like he was. I mean, it was based on a nightmare that he had. And making it was like being in a film. And oh, the people who were in it: Jonathan Frid, Mary Woronov, Hervé Villechaize.

[on her career after being a 'Bond Girl'] It was never the best for actresses because really and truly a Bond Girl is a Bond Girl and it's really hard to break out of the mould. So, from that point of view only a few have succeeded. The later girls have survived much easier compared to the earlier ones, but I don't regret it. It was an incredible experience.