You wouldn’t expect to catch James Bond playing hide the sausage with a bearded woman, so it should come as a bit of a bombshell that Izabella Scorupco (his squeeze in Goldeneye) was exactly that – albeit for a role in some nonsense Scando art house flick. Born in 1970 in the eastern city of Białystok, Scorupco followed her mother to Sweden when she was eight years old, showing a diligent commitment to music and drama during her formative years. Modelling assignments dominated her teenage years and her globetrotting lifestyle saw her master four languages: Swedish, Polish, English and Italian. She appeared on the cover of Italian Vogue, though like many impressionable starlets found success came at a price; she once claimed that while with Ford Modelling she went without solid food for four months – a dubious claim maybe, but proof at least that it’s not just Paris Hilton who has a tough life. Spotted by the Swedish director Staffan Hildebrand she was cast in the 1988 film Ingen Kan Alska Som Vi, a movie that launched her to the attention of adolescent lads across the country. A pop career followed, with a chart topping, gold selling album titled Iza released in Sweden. She returned to acting soon after, winning the lead role in Petri tara ('St. Peter’s Tears'), a film where she plays a bearded con-woman living in medieval Sweden. The Bond team saw beyond the whiskers, and that performance won her the part of Natalia Simonova in Goldeneye – becoming the first Polish-born Bond bird in the process. Since then it’s been a bit of a roller-coaster for our favourite pin-up. She turned down the lead female roles in LA Confidential and The Mask of Zorro, while her marriage to the Polish ice hockey star Mariusz Czerkawski hit the skids after two years. Since then she got hitched to Miami business bod Jeffrey Reymond (2003-15), and then Swedish businessman Karl Rosengren in 2019, whilst also trying  (unsuccessfully) to resurrect her career with roles in The Exorcist: The Beginning, as well as a good spread of yank B-grade flops, weird Scandinavian stuff and the Polish classic Ogniem i Mieczem.