GLAMOROUS Bond girl Honor Blackman sadly passed away aged 94, on April 6, 2020.
The actress was famous for playing Pussy Galore in 1964 James Bond classic Goldfinger and Cathy Gale in The Avengers, but who were her husbands and what do we know about her children?
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Who is Honor Blackman’s first husband Bill Sankey?
Honor grew up in West London and left home at the age of 18 after her father hit her for wearing lipstick.
She had a difficult relationship with her Dad, who the actress described as tyrannical. In an interview with Evening Standard back in 2004, she revealed: “My parents had Victorian values, and so the man was always right. It took me ages to work out men don’t always make the right decisions.
“I mean, instinct told me early on it wasn’t the case, but it took me a long time to argue back.”
Honor moved into a bedsit and landed an acting job as an understudy at the West End’s Criterion theatre.
At the tender age of 20, she married businessman Bill Sankey in 1948, but unfortunately his possessive ways reminded her of her Father.
When Bill suggested he wanted to emigrate to Canada, she realised she would be happier without him and the marriage ended in divorce in 1956.
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Who was her second husband Maurice Kaufmann?
At the age of 37, Honor married her second husband actor Maurice Kaufmann in 1961.
They appeared together in the horror film Fright (1971) and some theatre productions.
Maurice was a British actor of stage, film and TV, who was known for whodunits and horror films such as A Shot in the Dark, Circus of Fear and Man of Violence, from 1954 to 1981 when he retired.
The couple were unable to conceive children together, so they adopted daughter, Lottie, and son, Barnaby – before divorcing in 1975.
Maurice died in 1997 in London from cancer, aged 70.
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Who are her children Lottie and Barnaby Kaufmann?
Honor leaves behind two adopted children Barnaby and Lottie, and her four grandchildren Daisy, Oscar, Olive and Toby.
Honor and former husband Maurice Kaufmann adopted daughter Lottie in 1967 when she was six weeks old and son Barnaby the following year when he was aged three months. They each have two children.
In an interview with the Daily Express in 2014, Honor talking about her family said: “I couldn’t be happier with the two children we finished up with,” she says of Lottie, 46, a psychotherapist, and Barnaby, 45, who’s about to do a teaching course.
“They’ve both traced their biological parents. I gave them the wherewithal to do that because I really don’t understand adopted children who aren’t the least bit interested in their parentage.
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“They’re totally different characters. My daughter is serious and decisive and hard working. My son has done various things such as running a bar. Actually he would be divinely happy if he could just go to the ski slopes and stay there and take his family with him. They are both wonderful parents.”
