Karin Dor

Karin Dor was a German actress who became popular in the 1960s playing heroines in Edgar Wallace and Karl May movies. She starred in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice and the Alfred Hitchcock movie Topaz. Dor was born as Kätherose Derr in Wiesbaden, Germany. She began her acting career at the age of 17 and soon caught the attention of Austrian director Harald Reinl, who became her first husband. She appeared in many of his films, including crime thrillers, westerns and fantasy epics. She also played Brunhild in a two-part adaptation of the Nibelungen saga. Dor gained international fame as Helga Brandt, a SPECTRE agent who tries to kill James Bond in You Only Live Twice. She was one of the few Bond girls to have red hair and spoke her lines in English. She also worked with Alfred Hitchcock in Topaz, playing a Cuban revolutionary leader. However, the film was not a commercial success and Dor's career declined afterwards. She appeared in some American TV shows, such as Ironside and The FBI, but mostly focused on stage work in Germany. She was married three times and had one son with Reinl. Her last husband was George Robotham, an American stuntman and director, who died in 2007. Dor suffered a severe fall in 2016 that caused health complications. She died in a nursing home in Munich on November 6, 2017, at the age of 79.