Ian Fleming’s Bond Girls have always been an integral if slightly dated part of his James Bond novels. Always beautiful, always dangerous and always easily conquered by Bond and his irresistibly masculine manliness.
One of the most memorable of Fleming’s Bond Girls was Pussy Galore; the leader of a Trapeze artists who worked for the villainous Goldfinger she is remembered as being Amazonian and also apparently, for having lesbian tendencies that left Bond enthralled. Of course she changes her mind about the lesbian lusting after she is chatted up by Bond, who relishes “the sexual challenge all beautiful lesbians have for men“.
Fleming’s letter arose after a fan, Dr G Gibson had read Fleming’s 1959 novel Goldfinger, he found it difficult to diagnose Pussy’s lesbian tendencies and contacted the author for assistance. In his reply, it appears that Fleming believed that Pussy’s lesbianism was a “psychological malady”. The only cure, claimed Fleming, is “the right man” – and he goes by the name of Bond.” he continues to state that “Pussy only needed the right man to perform the laying on of hands to cure her psychopathological malady” and of course that man was James Bond.
Fleming had previously been contacted by Dr Gibson after reading From Russia with Love, to ask if James Bond had survived being poisoned at the end of the novel. Fleming told him in his reply that “a note had been posted at the Secret Service HQ canteen announcing Bond’s recovery“. Six months later, Dr No was published.
The letters are being put up for auction at Bonhams by Dr Gibson’s family and are expected to fetch upwards of £4,000 each.
Considering the record breaking opening weekend of Spectre, I wouldn’t be surprised if they went for a lot more.
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