Margaret Nolan Biography, Early Career, Goldfinger, Acting Career and Art Career

Margaret Nolan Biography

Margaret A. Nolan (born October 29, 1943) is an English visual artist, performer and former model of glamour. She was born to an English mother and Irish father at Norton Radstock, Somerset, and grew up in Hampstead, London. In 1967 Nolan was married to Tom Kempinski, an English playwright, and divorced in 1972. She’s got two children.

Margaret Nolan Early Career

Margaret Nolan started her career as a model before a camera lens. She was briefly known as Vicky Kennedy in the early 1960s as her glamorous modeling career began. As soon as acting roles beckoned, Nolan returned to her birth name; appearing in numerous TV shows, theater productions and films. The latter included A Hard Day’s Night in Manhattan with the Beatles, Ferry Cross the Mersey with Gerry and the Pacemakers, and the Three Rooms of Marcel Carné.

Margaret Nolan Goldfinger | Margaret Nolan Photos

In 1964, in the James Bond movie Goldfinger, Nolan played the small role of Dink, Bond’s masseuse. She was painted gold and wore a gold bikini for the title sequence, advertisements and soundtrack cover of Robert Brownjohn (not Shirley Eaton as in the film’s narrative).

Margaret Nolan

This led to photographs in the November 1965 edition of James Bond’s Girls by Playboy magazine. Composer Eric Rogers referenced Nolan’s Goldfinger affiliation in the 1971 film Carry On at Your Convenience using his three-note motif on a close-up of her. Nolan appeared on the front cover of the 2005 book, Robert Brownjohn: Sex and Typography, both in the US and UK versions. The title sequence was also parodied for their 2006 music-video Land of a Thousand Words by the pop band Scissor Sisters. Nolan gave her first interview in 2012 about her model experiences.

When asked if the image liberates or celebrates womanhood, Nolan answered that the physical form is celebrated. If I had been naked, it could have been about liberation because you wouldn’t have seen a naked woman in such a publicly visible thing up to that point. I could have been pretentious enough to say that this is liberating. But I didn’t get that sense because I was dressed-up anyway. It became the first movie title to be shown in MoMA, New York (2012) installation.

Margaret Nolan Art Career

Margaret Nolan, as a visual artist, produces graphic and sometimes grotesque photo-montages assembled from cut-outs of her early photographs of advertising. These pieces concern “a unique and personal dialogue intrinsically related to a view of a woman and how a woman is viewed.” She has exhibited in London at venues including the Brick Lane Gallery (2009), The Misty Moon Gallery (2013) and Gallery Different (2013), while Kemistry Gallery holds a screen print.

In 2009, Nolan’s early advertising shots inspired screen prints by Brighton-based graffiti artist Hutch.[19] Nolan’s photo-montage work was also selected for Playerist poetry magazine’s front cover (No. 2, 2012). Her works featured in the group show were equal in 2013: exploring feminism through art and conversation at BLANKSPACE Manchester; the press release citing that ”

Her voice carries alongside universal debate on socio-sexual hierarchies in the age of mass media.” Nolan lives and works in her home town of Hampstead, continues to exhibit, and occasionally attends film fans ‘ conventions.

Margaret Nolan Acting Career

On appearing at London’s Garrick Theater in 1969 in Michael Pertwee’s farce She’s Done It Again, Nolan was described as combining’… a long list of physical attractions with a talent that has contributed to the success of many films and television plays…’ She was known for five BBC series with Spike Milligan and published a short essay on her time working with him in 2013.

Nolan gave a live reading of the work at the Covent Garden Poetry Society, reviewed by What’s On London as a “deeply-personal memoir… her performance is simply magical.” She spoke of her awareness of Milligan’s depressive character, but also of her friendly working relationship; noting that “Professional, he taught me that timing is what makes things funny.

Nolan is the scene in Carry On Girls where a woman sneezes in a one-piece swimming suit and bursts opening two buttons on her outfit (revealing most of her breasts). The same film includes Nolan’s sequence (in a silver bikini) and Barbara Windsor on a hotel floor cat-fighting. Nolan also appeared in serious theater, motivated by political themes and one of the first episodes of The Sweeney TV Police drama.

Nolan’s work as a comedy actress was recognized in 2011 with her name included on the installation of Gordon Young’s Comedy Carpet before the Blackpool Tower. Also in 2011, after a gap of almost three decades, Nolan returned to the screen.

She starred in a role written specifically for her by Ann Cameron in The Power of Three by Yvonne Deutschman. The film was set in Hampstead and well-received with a 7.2 rating on IMDb on the independent circuit.

Margaret Nolan Television Appearances

• The Saint – “Iris” (1963)
• Crossroads (1964)
• ITV Play of the Week – “Deep and Crisp and Stolen” (1964)
• 199 Park Lane (1965)
• After Many a Summer (1965)
• Danger Man – “Parallel Lines Sometimes Meet” (1965)
• The Bed-Sit Girl (1966)
• Thirty-Minute Theatre – “The Enchanted Night” (1966)
• World of Wooster (1966)
• Adam Adamant Lives! – “More Deadly than the Sword” (1966)
• Buddenbrooks (1966)
• Hugh and I – “Goodbye Dolly” (1966)
• Theatre 625 – “A Man Like That” (1966)
• The Newcomers (1966)
• Take a Pair of Private Eyes (3 episodes) (1966)
• Armchair Theatre – “Compensation Alice” (1967)
• The Des O’Connor Show (1967)
• The Wednesday Play – “Death of a Private” (1967)
• The Morecambe and Wise Show (ATV) (1967)
• Nearest and Dearest – “Take a Letter” (1968)
• The World of Beachcomber (2 episodes) (1969)
• The Adventures of Don Quick – “The Benefits of Earth” (1970)
• Budgie – “Everybody loves a Baby” (1971)
• “Brief Encounter” (1972)
• “Run Rabbit, Run Rabbit, Run, Run, Run” (1972)
• Steptoe and Son – “A Star is Born” (1972)
• The Persuaders! – “Element of Risk” (1972)
• New Scotland Yard (1 episode) (1972)
• Whatever Happened to the Likely Lads? – “I’ll Never Forget Whatshername” (1973)
• Last of the Summer Wine – “Pate and Chips” (1973)
• Black and Blue – “The Middle-of-the-Road Roadshow for all the Family” (1973)
• Crown Court – “A Crime of Passion” (1973)
• The Sweeney – “Thin Ice” (1975)
• I Didn’t Know You Cared – “The Way My Wife Looks at Me…” (1976)
• Fox (3 episodes) (1980)
• Brideshead Revisited (1981)
• Crown Court- “Sword in the Hand of David” (1983)
• Carry On Forever (ITV3) (2015) Herself (not to be confused with the 1970 BBC Film Night Special of the same name)

Margaret Nolan Film Appearances

• It’s a Bare, Bare World! (1964) as Vicki
• Saturday Night Out (1964) as Julie
• A Hard Day’s Night (1964) as Girl at Casino
• The Beauty Jungle (1964) as Caroline
• Goldfinger (1964) as Dink, Bond’s masseuse
• Ferry Cross the Mersey (1965) as Norah
• Three Rooms in Manhattan (1965) as June
• Promise Her Anything (1965) as Mail-Order Film Girl
• Carry On Cowboy (1965) as Miss Jones the President’s secretary
• The Great St Trinian’s Train Robbery (1966) as Susie Naphill
• Witchfinder General (1968) as Girl at Inn
• Don’t Raise the Bridge, Lower the River (1968) as Spink’s nurse
• Can Heironymus Merkin Ever Forget Mercy Humppe and Find True Happiness?(1969) as Little Assistance
• Crooks and Coronets (1969) as Girlfriend
• The Best House in London (1969) as Busty Prostitute
• Toomorrow (1970) as Johnson
• Carry On Henry (1971) as Buxom Lass
• Carry On at Your Convenience (1971) as Popsy
• Carry On Matron (1972) as Mrs. Tucker
• No Sex Please, We’re British (1973) as Barbara
• Carry On Girls (1973) as Dawn Brakes
• Carry On Dick (1974) as Lady Daley
• Sky Bandits (1986) as Waitress
• The Power of Three (2011) as Dame Margaret