Pressies galore...
Pussy Galore actress Honor leaves string of £10,000 gifts to friends, stars and charities
ICONIC Bond girl Honor Blackman gave pressies galore to charities and her friends in her will.
The actress, who died last April aged 94, left a string of legacies to pals along with touching messages thanking them for their support and for bringing laughter into her life.
While Ms Blackman, who played Pussy Galore in the 1964 Bond film Goldfinger, left the bulk of her £1.85 million estate before inheritance tax in trust for her adopted children Barnaby and Lottie, probate records show she bequeathed £10,000 to each of seven charities.
These were Cancer Research UK, the Stroke Association, Multiple Sclerosis Society, Mind, Save The Children, British Red Cross and Mencap. She also gave £10,000 to the University of East London, close to her birthplace in Plaistow.
Other legacies, totalling £85,000, were left to 16 friends and relatives, including £10,000 to stage director Richard Digby Day for his ‘friendship, advice and support over the years’, and £5,000 to actor Julien Ball and his wife Jane for their ‘loving friendship’.
Actor Nickolas Grace, who starred in the TV series of Brideshead Revisited, was also left £5,000 by Ms Blackman ‘for long friendship, fun and entertainment’.
There were other gifts of £5,000 each to Francesca Encinar ‘for the many laughs together’, and to a couple she knew in Spain so they could pay for ‘an adventure’.
A further £5,000 was left to three members of staff at her theatrical agency, Stevenson Withers Associates, to ‘spend as they wish’, with another £5,000 left to one of them ‘to help with the flat’.
Twice-divorced Ms Blackman of Lewes, East Sussex, who starred in the 1960s TV series The Avengers, also made a £10,000 gift to her son’s partner Abigail Tutill with ‘ warmest thanks’ for providing her with two grandsons.
Ms Blackman rose to fame as karate expert Cathy Gale in The Avengers. She played pilot Pussy Galore in Goldfinger with Sean Connery and won new fans in ITV sitcom The Upper Hand in the 1990s.