A silver-haired pensioner has revealed she was the real-life Miss Moneypenny to original James Bond star Sean Connery.
Olive Young, 75, had one of the best jobs in show business when she was screen heartthrob Connery’s personal secretary for six years during the 1960s.
Great-grandmother Olive became the Scot’s personal assistant in 1961 after he poached her from his management agency where she worked as a receptionist.
Amazingly, the pair shared a real-life Bond-Moneypenny relationship with charismatic Connery and super-organised Olive looking out for each other as he became a superstar.
Like the on-screen pairing the employer and secretary never mixed business and pleasure.
But they did enjoy a glass of Scotch – rather than Vodka Martini – together on many evenings and often spared with quick-witted repartee as they went about their busy lives.
Caring Connery regularly nagged Olive about smoking and even generously paid for her first driving lessons as a gift.
Olive worked for Connery during the period he made legendary Bond movies Dr. No, From Russia With Love, Goldfinger, Thunderball and You Only Live Twice.
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But the real-life Bond girl has not seen any of the recent 007 films – because she believes none of them come close to Connery’s turns on screen.
She moved to Brighton to become a full-time mum after quitting her ‘Moneypenny’ role in 1967 and says she lost interest in Bond after the Roger Moore films.
Great-grandmother-of-three Olive admitted her husband Peter was always “a bit jealous” of “true gentleman” Connery and stained a picture of her with the star – with his coffee cup.
She said: “When I first started working for Sean I had never seen a Bond film, but I had heard of them.
“I started working for Sean’s agent in Curzon Street and after a few years he asked me to become his secretary.
“I was taken under his wing. He was very protective of me. He hated me smoking and told my boss to tell me to stop.
“He was a strong character, sometimes funny and sometimes very serious, but he was always hugely kind and a true gentleman.
“He could be quite stern and if I did something wrong would tell me off. But he was a lovely man to work for.
“I was young and very naive. If something came into my head I would just say it.
“Once a Swedish girl came round and asked me to give Sean some pictures of her. They were naked ones. I think she wanted to be a Bond girl.
“I said to Sean all these beautiful girls you work with and then look at her. She was not very beautiful. Sean told me off for saying that. Looking back he was right – I was being mean.
“Sean was never flirty in the office, but he was very protective of me when we went out. He would protect me from other men. He was like a big brother.
“I never imagined I would be working for James Bond. It is just one of those things.
“We did not drink Vodka Martinis but we both liked Scotch so we would sometimes have one together.
“My late husband didn’t like it – I suppose he was a bit jealous – and the one remaining picture has a coffee stain on it where he put his coffee cup once.”
She added: “Sean did not seem to really want to do the Bond films. I do not know if he was having a problem with the producers.
“When you are a secretary you do not pry or disclose.
He was once in a meeting and a call came in for him so I called through and told him. He came out and told me to tell the person on the line to ‘F off’.
“I put it more politely than that. I cannot remember who that was on the phone.”
Olive would receive postcards when Connery was travelling to film the Bonds and once house sat for him while he was in Japan filming You Only Live Twice.
She added: “Sean bought me my first driving lessons. When I went on the first session driving around Trafalgar square I was terrified.
“I still have a postcard from him from when he was filming one of the Bond films in Spain. He wrote: ‘give the girls a Swiss kiss for me’ which is like a French kiss but you yodel as well.
“I passed it on to all the girls in the office. He also wrote ‘belly enormous’ because he had eaten so much Spanish food.
“When he went to Japan with his then-wife Diane Cilento to shoot one of the Bond films he didn’t want his house to be empty so he asked me to stay there.
“I ended up spending more than a week house-sitting his place in Putney with the company of his father.
“His father and I used to sit in playing cards. I suppose he just wanted his house to be lived in.”
Olive started working for agent Richard Hutton in the late 1950s before Connery requested she take over as his secretary.
She left her glamorous London lifestyle to move to Brighton, Sussex, to marry Peter, a salesman and have a family in 1967, and lost touch with Connery.
But the generous Hollywood star did later send a postcard promising she could have her job back if she ever wanted to return to London.
Mother-of-three Olive added: “When I had moved to Brighton I did get a postcard saying if I decided to come back there would be a place for me, but I was being a full-time mother and had put London life behind me.”
Grandmother-of-seven Olive, whose husband died 11 years ago, aged 64, now lives in the quiet village of Broomfield, Kent.
She has passed the Bond baton to her son Nick Young, 42, who provided champagne and Martini at the premier of Skyfall at the Kavanagh Cinema in Herne Bay, Kent.
Olive’s picture with Connery is in pride of place on the wall of Nick’s pub the Royal Oak in Blean, Kent.
Scottish actor Sean Connery starred in seven Bond films between 1962 and 1983.
Later in his career Connery confessed he was “fed up to here with the whole Bond bit.”
