The quintessential jet-set Euro starlet, Ursula Andress was born in the Swiss canton of Berne on March 19, 1936, one of six children in a German Protestant family. Although often seeming icily aloof, a restless streak early demonstrated itself in her personality, and she had a desire to explore the world outside Switzerland. The stunning young woman ran away from home at the tender age of 17, found work as an art model in Rome and did walk-ons in three quickie Italian features before coming to the Hollywood. At 19, she met matinée idol John Derek, who left his first wife and two children to marry Ursula in 1957, despite the fact that she only spoke a few words of English at the time, and persuaded the new bride to postpone her acting ambitions for several years thereafter.
The year 1962 saw the virtually unknown Swiss beauty back on the set, playing a small role in the first movie version of Ian Fleming's fanciful "James Bond" espionage novels, James Bond 007 contre Dr. No (1962), opposite Sean Connery. Because her Swiss/German accent was so strong, Andress' entire performance had to be dubbed by a voiceover artist. Nevertheless, her striking beauty and smoldering screen presence made a strong impression on moviegoers, immediately establishing her as one of the most desired women in the world and as an ornament to put on-screen alongside some of the most bankable talent of the era, such as Elvis Presley in L'idole d'Acapulco (1963) and Dean Martin in Quatre du Texas (1963). In 1965, she was one of several European starlets to co-star in Quoi de neuf, Pussycat? (1965) -- a film that perhaps sums up mid-'60s pop culture better than any other -- written by Woody Allen, starring Allen and Peter Sellers, with music by Burt Bacharach, a title song performed by Tom Jones and much on-screen sexual romping.
Andress appeared in many more racy-for-their time movies in both the United States and Europe from the mid-'60s to the late '70s, including La dixième victime (1965), in which she wears a famously ballistic bra; Le crépuscule des aigles (1966), where she is aptly cast as the sultry, insatiable wife of an aristocratic World War I German general; the James Bond satire Casino Royale (1967); the excellent crime caper L'arnaqueuse (1970), in which she plays a seductive bank robbery accomplice; Soleil rouge (1971), as a foul-mouthed prostitute taken hostage by outlaws; as a bombshell nurse hired to titillate a doddering millionaire to death in Défense de toucher (1975); La montagne du dieu cannibale (1978), in which she is infamously stripped and slathered in orange paint by a pair of nubiles; and Le 5e mousquetaire (1979), in the role of King Louis XIV's alluring mistress.
Unmarried since 1966 when she divorced the controlling Derek to live with French New Wave star Jean-Paul Belmondo, Andress played the field for years, reportedly involved at various times with a host of famous men including (but by no means limited to) Ryan O'Neal, Marcello Mastroianni, Dennis Hopper and Fabio Testi. In 1979, she began what would be a long-term romance with Harry Hamlin, her handsome young co-star from Le choc des Titans (1981) (in which she was cast, predictably, as "Aphrodite"). While subsequently traveling in India, Andress' belly began to swell out of her clothing, and she felt very nauseous. What at first seemed a severe case of "Delhi Belly" turned out to be pregnancy, her first and only, at age 43. She and Hamlin named the child, who was born in 1980, Dimitri Hamlin.
After the birth of her son, Andress scaled back her career, which now focused mostly on slight European films and occasional television roles, as she was raising Dimitri in Rome. Her relationship with Hamlin ended in 1983, and she last worked on a film in 2005.
