This is to commemorate the recent 100th anniversary of the birth of Zena Marshall, and indeed it was the 15th anniversary of her passing last year. Born in Nairobi, Kenya, her ancestry was French on her father’s side and English/Irish on her mother’s. After father died, her mother moved the family to Leicestershire. She was educated at St Mary’s Roman Catholic School in Ascot, Berkshire. She became interested in acting after an ENSA (Entertainments National Service Association) tour in World War 2 whilst in her teens, and afterwards trained at RADA and achieved a contract with the Rank Organisation; she made her debut in Caesar and Cleopatra 1945, then had bit parts in Rank affiliates including Snowbound 1948 and So Long at the Fair 1950. She spent a brief spell in Hollywood and was in Let’s Be Happy 1957. In the 1950s she rekindled her theatre career and toured Germany & Netherlands in The Late Edwina Black, but did some films including OSS 1957; she did a shampoo commercial for early British TV and then three episodes of Danger Man 1961-4 before Sir Francis Drake & Richard the Lionheart in 1962. However she achieved fame and some notoriety as the double agent Miss Taro in Dr No 1962 and was the first `Bond girl’ to be seduced onscreen by 007 in the series. Her bedroom scene with Connery took several days to film and she found great difficulty spitting into his face as the part required. She was then in Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines 1965 and The Terrornauts 1967. A little later she retired into domestic life with her third husband in London, although they split their time with a property in the south of France – he died 2002. She achieved 62 screen credits. She died of cancer in London in 2009 and was interred in St Thomas a Becket churchyard, Skeffington, Harborough District, Leicestershire.
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