Linda Christian, a 1940s Hollywood actress nicknamed “Anatomic Bomb” by Life magazine for her stunning looks and famous for her marriage to actor Tyrone Power, has died aged 87, her daughter said here Saturday.
Romina Power told journalists in Rome that her mother, who had been suffering from colon cancer, died in Palm Springs on Friday.
Born in 1923 in Mexico, Christian — whose real name was Blanca Rosa Henrietta Stella Welter Vorhauer — was known for playing Mara in the last Tarzan film starring Johnny Weissmuller in 1948.
She was also the first James Bond girl in the 1954 television adaption of Casino Royale.
But she was perhaps most famous for her seven-year marriage to 20th Century Fox star Tyrone Power, with whom she had two children.
Thousands of people flocked to Rome to celebrate their wedding in 1949 in the Santa Francesca Romana church, a stone’s throw from the Colosseum. The newlyweds were later received by Pope Pius XII.
After Power’s death, Linda Christian married the English actor Edmund Purdom.
Christian’s later film appearances included a rare lead in William J. Hole Jr’s horror mystery The Devil’s Hand (1962), with Robert Alda and a minor supporting role in Anthony Asquith’s all-star drama The VIPs (1963).
Christian’s last film roles were in two 1987 productions: Giovanna Lenzi’s Delitti and Sergio Pastore’s Amore inquieto di Maria.
—AFP