Biography

Caroline Munro

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Overview

Born
January 16, 1949 · Windsor, Berkshire, England, UK
Birth name
Caroline Jane Munro
Height
5′ 7″ (1.70 m)

Mini bio

Leggy, brunette-maned pin-up actress Caroline Munro was born in Windsor, Berkshire, England, and lived in Rottingdean near Brighton where she attended a Roman Catholic convent school. By chance, her mother and a photographer entered her picture in a "Face of the Year" competition for the British newspaper The Evening News and won. This led to modeling chores, her first job being for Vogue Magazine at age 17. She moved to London to pursue top modeling jobs and became a major cover girl for fashion and television commercials while there.

Decorative bit parts came her way in such films as Casino Royale (1967) and Where's Jack? (1969). One of her many gorgeous photo ads earned her a screen test and a one-year contract at Paramount where she won the role of Richard Widmark's daughter in the comedy/western A Talent for Loving (1973). She first met husband/actor Judd Hamilton filming this movie but they later divorced. Also in 1969, she became the commercial poster girl for "Lamb's Navy Rum", a gig that lasted ten years. She had no lines as Vincent Price's dead wife in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971) and Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972) which, in turn, led to a Hammer Studios contract and such low-budget spine-tinglers as Dracula A.D. 1972 (1972) and Captain Kronos: Vampire Hunter (1974). More noticeable roles came outside the studio as the slave girl/love interest in The Golden Voyage of Sinbad (1973), the princess in At the Earth's Core (1976), and a lethal Bond girl in the top-notch The Spy Who Loved Me (1977). Her voluptuous looks sustained her for a bit longer but the quality of her roles did not improve with higher visibility. Later '70s and '80s roles included the lower-grade Starcrash (1978), Maniac (1980), and Slaughter High (1985), the last-mentioned written and directed by second husband George Dugdale, whom she married in 1990. He died in 2020.

Following her marriage, she was less seen. The septuagenarian continued to perform sporadically on camera, primarily in England and often in the horror genre. Subsequent lead and supporting movie roles have included Heaven's a Drag (1994), Domestic Strangers (1996), Flesh for the Beast (2003), Vampyres (2015), Cute Little Buggers (2017), and House of the Gorgon (2019), which also featured her daughter Georgina Dugdale.
- IMDb mini biography by: Gary Brumburgh / gr-home@pacbell.net

Family

Spouses
Children

Trademarks

Shoulder-length brown hair
Large sensual brown eyes
Delicate high cheekbones
Voluptuous bombshell figure
Seductive deep voice

Trivia

Turned down the role of Ursa in Superman (1978), which went to Sarah Douglas, in order to play Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).
Turned down an offer to do a Playboy nude spread. In fact, she refused to do any nude work at all and rejected such movie offers as The World Is Full of Married Men (1979) and Force 10 from Navarone (1978) which called for this.
As of (her friend) Richard Kiel's passing in 2014, she is the last surviving "named" villain of The Spy Who Loved Me (1977); Curd Jürgens and Milton Reid also are deceased.
She and fellow former Hammer pin-up Ingrid Pitt are considered the Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe of horror.
She was offered the role of Sister Hyde in Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde (1971) which she turned down because it required some nudity. The role eventually went to Martine Beswick.

Quotes

[1988 interview] As I get older I'm becoming more experienced and more secure about myself and my work. Having not taken the correct route of drama school and the stage, it has been extra hard for me. I felt I didn't have the experience and therefore, I was very insecure. Now however, I feel I have--in a way--paid my dues by going back to the beginning and starting again. That's why I have been jumping at so many different projects. I feel I've earned the chance. I feel I can be up there with the other actors. I'm still not completely secure, but I'm much more secure than I used to be.
I was frightened of every opportunity I had. Part of me wanted the success and notoriety and part of me didn't. Part of me is a private person, but part of me must be a show-off to be able to be in the limelight. It would be lovely--in an ideal world--if I could do the work and then go home and have my private life and be totally anonymous. Unfortunately, it can't be that way.
I wanted to do art. Art was my love. I went to art school in Brighton but I was not very good at it. I just did not know what to do. I had a friend at the college who was studying photography and he needed somebody to photograph and he asked me. Unbeknownst to me, he sent the photographs to a big newspaper in London. The fashion photographer, David Bailey, was conducting a photo contest and my picture won.
[on losing her husband of 30 years, George Dugdale]: I was really broken. It was so difficult for me and so difficult for my girls. But Georgina and Iona have been amazing, they are my pillars, unbelievably strong. We're the Three Musketeers.
[on Roger Moore]: Very charismatic and wonderful. He made a perfect Bond, he'll always be my Bond, always. Nice, lovely man.