Sorry James, A Person Painted Gold Won’t Die Of Skin Suffocation
British agent James Bond, the spy who knows almost everything on any subject does sometimes get it wrong. Or at least his screenwriter does.
In Goldfinger, Bond is presented with the villain’s calling card: the glittering naked body of Jill Masterton (Shirley Eaton) draped across the bed, the pair had made love in.
Miss Masterton betrayed her employer, the portly, gold-obsessed Auric Goldfinger. She’s paid to “just be seen with him”, but having a dalliance with the man that spotted him cheating at cards and cost him $10,000 cost Masterton her life.
The image became indelible, iconic like so many scenes and images in the film. It’s the most iconic of the Bond films. The gold standard with plenty of golden moments that the series would often try to recreate or top.
After Bond discovers Masterton’s body, the scene cuts to London. Bond stands in front of his boss, M, and tells him:
“She died of skin suffocation. It’s been known to happen to cabaret dancers. It’s all right, as long as you leave a small bare patch at the base of the spine for the skin to breathe.”
From there, it became a bit of an urban legend.
This urban legend was explored in the March 7, 2003, episode of Myth Busters, and the myth was busted!
It sounds plausible, but it’s pure bunk—pure Bond bunk in the best tradition. We love it. Only Bond can get away with it, and he frequently does.
Quite simply, we breathe through our nose and mouths, not our skin. While those tiny pores are important, they’ll cause heat stroke when clogged, but don’t cause suffocation.
The filmmakers forgot to do their due diligence and simply believed Fleming’s prose. (This is the same author that had Bond battle a giant squid in Dr. No, which the producers mercifully decided not to include.)
A physician was present during Eaton’s golden moment, and the makeup was quickly removed afterwards.
Eaton certainly enjoyed the experience, especially the feeling of the fine brush on her skin.
“I had no paint on the front of me, and then I had two little cones – before Madonna, by the way – on my breasts, for my own modesty. And tiny mini patches, what we call thongs today. The way Guy Hamilton filmed it, in the foreground there’s a cushion on the sofa, and the edge of the cushion just covers the G-string, the thong, so I look totally naked.”
It certainly catapulted her to fame, despite her few minutes of screen time. She even graced the cover of LIFE magazine on November 19, 1964, painted in gold paint.
