20. Pedro Armendáriz
In the second Bond movie, From Russia With Love, Pedro Armendáriz played Ali Kerin Bey, the British Intelligence Chief of Istanbul. In one scene, Armendáriz moves with a limp due to cancer in his hips. A few years prior to filming the Bond movie, Armendáriz was in the movie, The Conqueror, which was filmed in Utah, not far from the U.S. nuclear test site in Nevada. Many of the people from The Conqueror developed cancer after that film. After Armendáriz finished filming his scenes for From Russia With Love, he returned home to Los Angeles for treatment. The cancer was terminal. Rather than ride it to the end, Armendáriz took his own life with a gun he’d snuck into the hospital.
19. Goldfinger
The first two Bond films had been a hit so the budget for Goldfinger was huge, equal to both the first two combined. The money was well spent as Goldfinger grossed $125-million worldwide. It also won the first Oscar awarded to a Bond film. That distinction went to Normal Wanstall for Best Sound Effects Editing. If you haven’t seen it, [spoiler alert], in the story one of the characters, Jill Masterson, played by Shirley Eaton, dies from skin suffocation. In 1964 audiences accepted that painting one’s skin would suffocate that person. Auric Goldfinger, the bad guy, paints Masterson head to toe in gold paint, an excuse to see her mostly nude, but also a frightening way to kill her.