KARIN DOR

(22 February 1938 - 6 November 2017)

The German actress Karin Dor, who has died at the age of 79, will always be remembered as a Bond girl, playing Helga Brandt opposite Sean Connery in You Only Live Twice (1967). Born Kätherose Derr, she began her career as a film extra. Spotted by her future husband the film director Harald Reinl, one of her first films was his Der schweigsame Engel (1954) and she went on to make more films in Germany, including Edgar Wallace thrillers, Karl May westerns and White Horse Inn (1960). She did The Invisible Dr Mabuse, The Treasure of the Silver Lake and Winnetou: The Red Gentleman with Lex Barker, and in the UK The Face of Fu Manchu with Christopher Lee. Then came 007 and You Only Live Twice, after which she became known globally. However, she still made films in Germany, apart from Dracula Versus Frankenstein (with Michael Rennie) in Spain. Alfred Hitchcock’s Topaz was her only other major American film and is remembered for the scene of Karin Dor’s death, as Juanita, in which an overhead shot sees her fall while her dress flows out around her. Television in the US and Germany plus other German features filled out the rest of her career, although she also appeared on stage in Germany almost up until her death, the result of an earlier brain concussion. Apart from Harald Reinl, with whom she had a son (the actor Andreas Renell), Dor’s other husbands were Gűnther Schmucker and the actor-director George Robotham (1921-2007).

MICHAEL DARVELL