Pamela Salem, one-time Miss Moneypenny, dies

Last Updated on February 26, 2024

Pamela Salem, who portrayed Miss Moneypenny in the non-Eon James Bond movie Never Say Never Again, has passed away at the age of 80.

While Pamela Salem’s turn as Moneypenny was a one-off – and in a film that is widely not considered part of the 007 canon – her go at the beloved character can’t be ignored. Interestingly, despite how frequently the character appears in the Bond universe, she has only been played by a small selection of actresses: Lois Maxwell, Caroline Bliss, Samantha Bond, and Naomie Harris. But only Salem has the distinction of playing Miss Moneypenny just one time.

But not once was there any strange bad blood between Pamela Salem or her predecessors, particularly Maxwell. As per a 1984 interview (via The Hollywood Reporter), Salem said, “I had seen Moneypenny before, of course, in the earlier films played by Lois Maxwell…At first [the media] tried to stir things up between us — it was all absolute nonsense, and Lois Maxwell wrote a very nice letter to me, and I contacted her, and they had to drop it eventually because they realized we were friends….I owe the part to Lois in fact because she established the role so beautifully in everyone’s minds. As soon as you mention the name Moneypenny, people automatically think of Lois.”

But Pamela Salem’s career was not strictly Miss Moneypenny, making her debut five years prior (alongside, coincidentally enough, Sean Connery) in The First Great Train Robbery. While Salem made sporadic appearances on the big screen throughout the ‘80s, ‘90s and ‘00s, she had a much more prolific career on television. Most notably, she played multiple characters on Doctor Who in the ‘70s and ‘80s, co-starred in the BBC series Buccaneer, played the primary villain on children’s show Into the Labyrinth, and had a lengthy arc on British soap opera Eastenders. She would also appear on prominent American series such as ER, Party of Five and The West Wing.

Salem was married to Michael O’Hagan until his 2017 death.

Leave your condolences for – and favorite performances of – the late Pamela Salem in the comments section below.