Maud Adams (born February 12, 1945, as Maud Solveig Christina Wikström), is an actress best known for her roles as two different Bond girls in two James Bond films, as Andrea Anders in The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and as the title character in Octopussy (1983).

Maud Adams in and as ‘Octopussy’ (left) and as Andrea Anders in ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’.

Adams was discovered in 1963 in a shop by a photographer who wanted to take her picture, a picture he submitted to the Miss Sweden contest arranged by the magazine Allers. Adams won this contest and from there her modelling career took off. She moved to Paris and later to New York City to work for Eileen Ford, at this time she was one of the highest paid and most exposed models in the world. Her acting career started when she was asked to star in the 1970 film The Boys In The Band, in which she played a model.

She hosted the Swedish TV show Kafé Luleå in 1994 and played a guest role in the Swedish soap opera Vita lögner in 1998. In the 1970s, she guest starred in such American TV series as Hawaii Five-O and Kojak.

Adams was catapulted to international fame as the villain’s mistress in The Man with the Golden Gun where her performance was reviewed as “tough but haunted”. She was so highly regarded by producer Albert R Broccoli that she was asked to return as the title character in Octopussy in 1983, this time as the lead—an exotic and mysterious smuggler, also opposite Moore.

Adams had a Swedish co-star on both of her Bond films, Kristina Wayborn as Magda in Octopussy and Britt Ekland as Mary Goodnight in The Man with the Golden Gun. She also made a cameo appearance in A View to a Kill (1985).

While portraying a Bond girl has not always indicated continued success as an actress, Adams once said, “Looking back on it, how can you not really enjoy the fact that you were a Bond Girl? It’s pop culture and to be part of that is very nice.”