S4 Ep2: Gloria Hendry: the Live and Let Die star on Bond, Playboy Bunnies and the blaxploitation era

The Last Bohemians

The Last Bohemians returns with a brand new series set in Tinseltown, supported by Audio-Technica. From forgotten feminist artists to Sunset Strip sexpots and from punk performers to subversive style disruptors (and one Californian arts dynasty!): these are some of the most maverick women in LA, whose stories each say something different about the city.
Episode two is with 1970s Bond Girl, Gloria Hendry. She made film history when she snogged 007 in Live and Let Die, becoming Bond's first Black love interest. She took on edgy roles in what were known as blaxploitation films, like Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem. And before that, she became a Playboy Bunny in 1960s New York at the same time as training as a legal secretary, right when the Civil Rights Movement was bubbling up around her.
She's a total trailblazer, whose life story takes us from a broken home in New Jersey to the glitzy casinos of New York, via a film audition with Roger Moore in New Orleans. She remembers filming Bond, her raunchy scenes from what she calls the “Black renaissance” in cinema, how her life unravelled and how California helped get her back on her feet, what the Playboy Club taught her about life, why she stays in shape and how she paved the way for Black women in film.
If you want more, do check out her recent memoir, GLORIA, which is filled with incredible Playboy photographs of her from the 1970s and some abs to die for.
Trigger warning: this episode contains themes of abuse and suicide towards the beginning.
CREDITS
Presenter/exec producer: Kate Hutchinson
Editor: Georgie Rogers
Recording and additional production: Holly Fisher
Photography: Lisa Jelliffe
With thanks to Anders Frejdh, Dan Moss @ Colour It In, Mr & Mrs Smith.
MUSIC
Theme music: Pete Cunningham, Ned Pegler and Caradog Jones
Lobo Loco - Little Caesar of the Boulevard
Juanitos - Do The Kangaroo
Dee-Yan Kee? - Sunday Morning
HoliznaCCO - Laundry On The Wire
Nuisance - Qanisqineq (Instrumental)
U.S Army Blues - Oginiland
ABOUT AUDIO-TECHNICA
In 1962, with a vision of producing high-quality audio for everyone, Audio-Technica’s founder Hideo Matsushita created the first truly affordable phono cartridge, the AT-1 in Shinjuku, Japan. Since then, Audio-Technica has grown into a world-renowned company devoted to Audio Excellence at every level, expanding the product range to include headphones, microphones and turntables. Audio-Technica’s commitment to the user experience and their devotion to high quality design, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has placed them at the forefront of the industry for the last 60 years.
ABOUT THE LAST BOHEMIANS
Journalist and broadcaster Kate Hutchinson launched The Last Bohemians in 2019, pairing the audio with stunning portraits by photographer Laura Kelly. It stole hearts with 86-year-old Molly Parkin’s stories of self-pleasuring, LSD countess Amanda Feilding’s trepanning tales and Pamela Des Barres’ reflections on supergroupiedom. It won silver for Best New Podcast at the 2020 British Podcast Awards and was a finalist at the 2021 Audio Production Awards.
Series two featured folk legend Judy Collins; British fashion icon Zandra Rhodes, dealing with the aftermath of losing her lover while celebrating 50 years in fashion; anarcho-punk innovator and illustrator Gee Vaucher; and the controversial witch at the heart of the 1970s occult boom, Maxine Sanders. In 2021, The Last Bohemians launched a lockdown special with performance artist Marina Abramović; it returned in 2022 with the UK’s greatest living painter, Maggi Hambling, as well as Bowie’s former best friend Dana Gillespie and theatre actor Cleo Sylvestre.
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