Ian Fleming c. 1960. Photo via Air Mail magazine.
By Paul Goldfinger, Editor Blogfinger.net
I received some kidding over the years with the name “Goldfinger.” . My Dad’s license plate said “007”. I’m not sure he knew that Goldfinger was a villain and not a hero spy.
About James Bond, Fleming said, “He is of course, a highly romanticised version of the true spy.”
Fleming was a Brit–a journalist who took off for 2 months each year to vacation in his Jamaica home with his wife. He wrote his first Bond novel, Casino Royale, in 1953 there.
Shirley Bassey sang “Goldfinger,” and if you press our OG doorbell, it plays that theme.
As a doctor, there were lots of jokes about my name.. If a patient complained that my hands were cold, I would say, “That’s why they call me Coldfinger.”
Rotating through gynecology in med school, my classmates called me “Boldfinger.” There other variations of that medical theme. I had many nicknames and thus my propensity to give others nicknames such as the “Home Groaners.”
And Eileen had to cope with the name of the lovely lesbian “Pussy Galore.” She was a fictional character in “Goldfinger,” born in America, but part of Goldfinger’s band of evil doers. When we got married, I asked her if she minded being kidded about her new last name. But she said that she enjoyed it.
Goldfinger was the third in the James Bond series. It was 1964, and Sean Connery had the role of the most famous M16 agent 007.
SHIRLEY BASSEY