On of the first Bond Girls to appear on screen, alongside the famous “Honey Ryder” and the agent's first girlfriend “Sylvia Trench”, was the exotic “Miss Taro” – the leading henchwoman for the diabolical “Dr. Julius No”.
By day, Miss Taro poses as an aide to the Colonial Secretary, “Pleydell-Smith”, at the Government House in Kingston, Jamaica. She discovers that the MI6 agent has become suspicious of the Doctor’s movements, and he successfully seduces her and gets an invitation to her house. When Bond arrives at her home (after shrugging off the “SPECTRE” cronies who were following him), another villain, “Professor Dent” comes to shoot him. But when he wastes his whole round into a pillow, Bond responds coolly with one of his most famous lines, “That's a Smith and Wesson and you've had your six”. He then fires a single shot right to the Professors chest.
Miss Taro was played by the British-Kenyan actress, Zena Marshall, who was born in 1925. As she came from an Asian background, she would often be cast in what would be called ‘ethnic’ roles. “Dr. No” was easily her most noted appearance in film. Her first major production was “Caesar and Cleopatra” in 1945, in which she had a minor part.
After the success of the first Bond outing, Marshall went on to the star in 1965’s “Those Magnificent Men in Flying Machines”, which also had Stuart Whitman and Sarah Miles. Her last known credit was in 1971, when she starred in the TV-movie “Act of Betrayal”.
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