Lois Maxwell Biography

Lois Maxwell, the actress who played Miss Moneypenny in 14 James Bond spy films, died Saturday night (Sept. 29, 2007) at Fremantle Hospital, near her home in Perth, Australia.

Actor and friend Roger Moore, who played the role of James Bond from 1973 to 1985, said she was suffering from cancer, but that her death comes as a `”shock.”

She was born Lois Hooker on February 14, 1927, in Kitchener, Ontario, Canada, to a teacher and a nurse.  Reared in Toronto, Maxwell began her acting career in radio. 

At age 15, she ran away from home to join the Canadian Army during World War II.  She moved to Britain with the Army Entertainment Corps and traveled Europe during the war, performing music and dance numbers to entertain the troops.

She enrolled at the prestigious Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, where she became friends with fellow student and future James Bond actor, Roger Moore.

Having changed her last name to Maxwell, she moved to Hollywood at age twenty.  Maxwell won a Golden Globe as most promising female newcomer for her part in the Shirley Temple comedy That Hagen Girl.  She also participated in a 1949 Life Magazine photo layout in which she posed with rising star Marilyn Monroe.

Tired of working mostly in B movies, Maxwell left Hollywood for Rome in 1950.  While making a series of films, she also became an amateur racing driver.  And on a trip to Paris, she met her husband, television executive Peter Marriott.  Married in 1957, the couple moved to London and had two children, daughter Melinda in 1958 and son Christian in 1959.  

She appeared in Stanley Kubrick's Lolita in 1962 and on several TV shows, including The Saint and The Persuaders! which both starred Moore.