She’s the Bond girl you’ve heard — just never heard of. British actress Nikki van der Zyl has been in as many 007 adventures than Sean Connery and Daniel Craig combined — 10 total — but her contributions to the franchise have been largely overlooked.
Van der Zyl was hired to dub the lines of nearly every Bond girl from 1962’s “Dr. No” right up to 1979’s “Moonraker.”
In Bond’s first outing, “Dr. No,” producers Cubby Broccoli and Harry Saltzman wanted Swiss bombshell Ursula Andress for the role of Honey Ryder, who famously emerges from the sea in a white bikini, but van der Zyl says, “They knew she had a voice that wasn’t feasible.”
English was not Andress’ first language, and she spoke with a heavy accent. At the time, van der Zyl was working at a prominent London sound studio dubbing foreign films and was recommended for the job.
“The big problem with Ursula was that she was putting the emphasis on the wrong word,” van der Zyl, 77, says. “She wasn’t quite sure which part of the word she had to emphasize, which meant the sync was difficult to do.”
Van der Zyl re-recorded all of Andress’ dialogue, including the song “Under the Mango Tree,” which Ryder is singing the first time Bond encounters her. She was asked to use a neutral “mid-Atlantic accent,” because the producers wanted Americans to be able to understand the voice.
Broccoli and Saltzman were so pleased that van der Zyl was asked to dub every female role in the film, with the exception of Moneypenny, Miss Taro and a Chinese character. For her trouble, she was paid $60 per session. Van der Zyl, whose nickname was “One-Take Nikki,” estimates she completed the whole of “Dr. No” in three or four sessions, for a total of just about $200. Her contract stipulated she’d get no residuals.
It was also implied that she’d keep her work secret. Van der Zyl doesn’t know if the on-screen actresses knew their performances would be dubbed, but what is known is that these days, some aren’t happy about it being publicized.
Van der Zyl says in September she was uninvited from a UK Bond celebration after Shirley Eaton complained to the organizers. Eaton, whose character was killed in “Goldfinger” by being painted gold, is British but had a strong Cockney accent, so van der Zyl was asked to give the character a softer, sexier voice.
“If I was an actress and couldn’t speak, and someone else spoke for me, and as a result I became world famous, I don’t think I’d complain too much,” van der Zyl says.
She’s also written an autobiography called “For Your Ears Only,” due in January. “I’ve been ignored and beaten down for 50 years, so I’m now going to actually say what happened,” van der Zyl says.
Other iconic Bond girls for whom van der Zyl provided voices include: French beauty queen Claudine Auger in “Thunderball” (“It was easy because the timbre of her voice was much closer to xxxxmine.”) Jane Seymour in “Live and Let Die” and Eunice Gayson in “From Russia With Love” (Producers thought her voice was “too precious.”).
Van der Zyl began her work after the film was completed. She’d study the face on-screen and intuit what the character should sound like. “Ursula Andress looks like she has a deeper, rougher voice. My voice is higher than hers, so I had to lower it a bit,” she says. “One thing you mustn’t do is [mimic the actress’] voice, because that’s what the producers want to get rid of. They want your voice and proper acting, which Andress couldn’t do.”
Van der Zyl almost made it on-screen herself. “They had cast Daniela Bianchi in ‘From Russia With Love.’ I got a call that a limousine was being sent because they didn’t want her, and they thought the part would be good for me,” she says. “The limousine never turned up, and I didn’t get the part. Later, I asked Roger Moore, and he said they wanted to have me, but it was too expensive to get out of Bianchi’s contract.”
All van der Zyl is looking for nowadays is recognition for her contribution to history’s most enduring film franchise.
“I don’t think the movies would have been as successful [without the dubbing],” she says. “And I don’t think Ursula would have gotten a [1964] Golden Globe for best newcomer with her own voice. When it happened, I wasn’t that aware of it, but looking back now, I think, ‘Heyyy.’ ”