Lois Maxwell

Lois Maxwell (14 February 1927 – 29 September 2007) was a Canadian actress.

Maxwell began her film career in the late 1940s, and won a Golden Globe Award for the New Actress of the Year for her performance in That Hagen Girl (1947). Following a number of small film roles, Maxwell grew dissatisfied and travelled to Italy where she worked in films from 1951 until 1955, and following her marriage, she moved to the United Kingdom where she appeared in several television productions.

She originated the role of Miss Moneypenny in the James Bond franchise, playing the character in fourteen films, from Dr. No (1962) until her final performance of the character in A View to a Kill (1985).

As Maxwell's career declined, she lived in Canada, Switzerland and England, until she was diagnosed with bowel cancer in 2001. She moved to Perth, Western Australia where she lived with her son until her death in 2007, at the age of eighty.

Life and career

Early life

Born Lois Ruth Hooker in Kitchener, Ontario to parents who were a nurse and a teacher. She grew up in Toronto and attended Lawrence Park Collegiate Institute. Dissatisfied with the yields of baby sitting jobs, Lois set her sights on something more lucrative and landed her first job working as a waitress at Canada's largest and most luxurious summer resort, Bigwin Inn, on Bigwin Island in Lake of Bays, Ontario, Canada. She ran away from home at the age of fifteen to join the...
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