Barbara Bach

Bach was born Barbara Goldbach, in New York City, New York, in the Queens neighborhood of Rosedale, one of two daughters born to Howard Irwin Goldbach (1922–2001), a police officer of European Jewish heritage, and Marjorie Mary Goldbach (née McKnight; 1921–1997), an Irish homemaker.[3] In 1964, she graduated from the all-girl Dominican Commercial High School in Jamaica, Queens.[4] The following year, she shortened her last name to Bach and began modeling professionally, appearing in catalogs and fashion magazines.

Bach was one of the most sought-after faces in the '60s, working with the Eileen Ford Agency in New York, appearing on catalogs and the front covers of several international fashion magazines such as Seventeen (1965 and 1966), Vogue USA (July 1966) photographed by Richard Avedon, ELLE France (1966), Gioia Italy (1967–1970), and Figurino Brazil (1970).

Her acting career started in Italy, where she played Nausicaa in L'Odissea in 1968, an eight-hour long TV adaptation of Homer's famous epic poem The Odyssey, directed by Franco Rossi and produced by Dino de Laurentiis.

In 1972, Bach co-starred with two other Bond girls, Claudine Auger and Barbara Bouchet, in the mystery Black Belly of the Tarantula (a giallo film) and had small roles in other Italian films.

In 1977, Bach portrayed the Russian spy Anya Amasova in the James Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me. Bach remarked after the film that Bond is "a chauvinist pig who uses girls to shield him against bullets."[5] The following year she appeared in the movie Force 10 from Navarone. She lost a role to actress Shelley Hack when she auditioned for season four of the television series Charlie's Angels.[6] During an interview with Johnny Carson on May 9, 1979, she said that she lost the audition for Charlie's Angels because they felt she was too sophisticated in attitude and look, and thought that she was not American, even though she was born in Rosedale, Queens, and grew up in Jackson Heights, Queens, in New York City. They asked her manager if she could play an American.[7] Bach has 28 films to her credit. She was featured in a pictorial in Playboy in June 1977. She also had a cameo in a September 1987 special issue on the Bond girls.

Bach's first marriage was to Italian businessman Augusto, Count Gregorini di Savignano di Romagna. The couple had two children together, daughter Francesca and son Gianni, before divorcing in 1975.[6] Bach married British musician Ringo Starr, formerly of The Beatles, at Marylebone Town Hall on 27 April 1981.[10][11] The two met in 1980, on the set of the film Caveman (1981).[6]

According to the International Vegetarian Union, Bach and Starr practise vegetarianism.[12]

She is fluent in Italian and has a working knowledge of French and Spanish.[7]

Her sister Marjorie Bach is married to Eagles guitarist Joe Walsh.

• Barbara Bach on IMDb