Cast
Sean Connery as James Bond (007), an MI6 agent who is sent to investigate Auric Goldfinger. Connery reprised the role of Bond for the third time in a row. His salary rose, but a pay dispute emerged during filming. After Connery suffered a back injury filming the scene in which Oddjob knocks Bond unconscious in Miami, the dispute was settled: Eon agreed to pay Connery 5% of the gross of each Bond film he starred in.
Honor Blackman as Pussy Galore, Goldfinger's personal pilot and leader of an all-female team of pilots known as Pussy Galore's Flying Circus. Blackman was selected for the role because of her role as the skilled judoka Cathy Gale in The Avengers, for which she had received martial arts training. The script was rewritten to make Pussy Galore a judoka as well. The character's name follows in the tradition of other Bond girls' names that are double entendres. Concerned about American censors, the producers thought about changing the character's name to "Kitty Galore", but they and Hamilton decided "if you were a ten-year old boy and knew what the name meant, you weren't a ten-year old boy, you were a dirty little bitch. The American censor was concerned, but we got round that by inviting him and his wife out to dinner and [told him] we were big supporters of the Republican Party." During promotion, Blackman took delight in embarrassing interviewers by repeatedly mentioning the character's name. While the American censors did not interfere with the name in the film, they refused to allow the name "Pussy Galore" to appear on promotional materials and for the American market she was subsequently called "Miss Galore" or "Goldfinger's personal pilot".
Gert Fröbe as Auric Goldfinger, a wealthy, psychopathic man obsessed with gold. Orson Welles was considered as Goldfinger, but his financial demands were too high; Theodore Bikel and Titos Vandis auditioned for the role. Fröbe was cast because the producers saw his performance as a child molester in the German film It Happened in Broad Daylight (1958). Fröbe, who spoke little English, said his lines phonetically, but was too slow. To redub him, he had to double the speed of his performance to get the right tempo. The only time his real voice is heard is during his meeting with members of the Mafia at Auric Stud, while Bond is hidden below the model of Fort Knox. Goldfinger's dialogue was redubbed for the rest of the film by TV actor Michael Collins. The match is widely praised as one of the most successful dubs in cinema history.
Shirley Eaton as Jill Masterson, a Bond girl and Goldfinger's aide-de-camp, whom Bond catches helping the villain cheat at a game of cards. Eaton was sent by her agent to meet Harry Saltzman and agreed to take the part if the nudity was done tastefully. It took an hour and a half to apply the paint to her body. Although only a small part in the film, the image of her painted gold was renowned and Eaton appeared as such on the 6 November 1964 cover of Life magazine. Joan Collins had been originally offered the role but turned it down as she was pregnant with her son.
Tania Mallet as Tilly Masterson, Jill's sister. Although Mallet was a well-known model, Goldfinger was her sole film role. She had previously auditioned for the role of Tatiana Romanova in From Russia with Love.
Harold Sakata as Oddjob, Goldfinger's lethal Korean manservant. Director Guy Hamilton cast Sakata, an Olympic silver medalist weightlifter, as Oddjob after seeing him on a wrestling programme. Hamilton called him an "absolutely charming man", and found that "he had a very unique way of moving, [so] in creating Oddjob I used all of Harold's own characteristics". Sakata was badly burned when filming his death scene, in which Oddjob was electrocuted by Bond. He, however, kept holding onto the hat with determination, despite his pain, until the director called "Cut!". Oddjob has been described as "a wordless role, but one of cinema's great villains."
Bernard Lee as M, 007's boss and head of the British Secret Service.
Martin Benson as Mr. Solo, the lone gangster who refused to take part in Operation Grand Slam. The surname Solo was re-used by Ian Fleming when he was briefly involved in creating the character Napoleon Solo for the American TV series The Man from U.N.C.L.E., which led to a threatened lawsuit by Bond producers Broccoli and Saltzman, forcing Fleming to back out of the series.
Cec Linder as Felix Leiter, Bond's CIA liaison in the United States. Linder was the only actor actually on location in Miami. Linder's interpretation of Leiter was that of a somewhat older man than the way the character was played by Jack Lord in Dr. No; in reality, Linder was a year younger than Lord. According to screenwriter Richard Maibaum, Lord demanded co-star billing, a bigger role and more money to reprise the role in Goldfinger, which led the producers to recast the part.
Austin Willis as Mr. Simmons, a Miami tourist who falls victim to Goldfinger's gin rummy cheating scheme. Willis was originally cast as Felix Leiter, but switched roles with Cec Linder at the last minute.
Lois Maxwell as Miss Moneypenny, M's secretary
Bill Nagy as Mr. Midnight, the gangster whose contributions Goldfinger says helped smuggle the nerve gas across the Canadian border
Desmond Llewelyn is not credited in the opening sequence, but he plays Q, the head of Q-branch. Hamilton told him to inject humour into the character, thus beginning the friendly antagonism between Q and Bond that became a hallmark of the series. He had already appeared in the previous Bond film, From Russia with Love, and, with the exception of Live and Let Die, would continue to play Q in the next 16 Bond films.
Other actors in the film include Michael Mellinger as Kisch, Goldfinger's secondary and quiet henchman and loyal lieutenant who leads his boss's fake Army convoy to Fort Knox; Nadja Regin played Bonita, a dancer who sets a trap for Bond in the pre-credit sequence; Burt Kwouk portrayed Ling, the Communist Chinese nuclear fission specialist; Richard Vernon as Colonel Smithers, a Bank of England official; Margaret Nolan as Dink, Bond's masseuse from the Miami hotel sequence. (Vernon and Nolan both appeared in A Hard Day's Night that same year.) Nolan also appeared as the gold-covered body in advertisements for the film and in the opening title sequence as the golden silhouette, described as "Gorgeous, iconic, seminal". Gerry Duggan appears as Hawker, Bond's golf caddy.
