Tracy Bond
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| James Bond character | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Tracy Bond | |
| Gender | Female |
| Role | Bond girl |
| Affiliation | Wife of James Bond |
| Current status | Deceased |
| Portrayed by | Diana Rigg |
Tracy Bond (born Teresa Draco, aka Countess Teresa di Vicenzo) is a fictional character in the James Bond film and novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service. To date she is the only cinematic Bond girl to officially marry secret agent Commander James Bond, though Bond would later marry again in John Gardner's Scorpius. In the film version of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, Tracy was played by actress Diana Rigg.
[edit] Bio
Born Teresa Draco in 1943, she is the child of Marc-Ange Draco, the head of "The Union Corse," a powerful international Mafia crime syndicate -- not quite as large as SPECTRE, but with substantially larger "legal" operations, including Draco Construction. Teresa goes by "Tracy" because she feels "Teresa" is too grand. (As she once said, "Teresa is a saint; I'm known as Tracy.")
Teresa was the only daughter of Marc-Ange Draco and his English-born wife, who had met him while he was hiding out from the authorities in Corsica. Tracy's mother died when Teresa was 12; her father then sent her to a boarding school in Switzerland. Deprived of a stable home life, Teresa joined the "jet set", committing "one scandal after another"; when Draco cut off her allowance, Teresa committed "a greater folly" out of spite. She later married Italian Count Giulio di Vicenzo who, during their marriage, got ahold of a large portion of her money before eventually leaving her; he subsequently died while driving a Maserati in the company of one of his mistresses. During this marriage, Teresa had a child, who later died of spinal meningitis.
Desperate with grief for her child, Tracy attempted suicide by jumping into the sea, to be saved by James Bond. Her father pleaded with Bond to continue to see her, claiming that their relationship had changed her for the better. Bond initially refused, but he changed his mind when Marc-Ange offered his resources for anything Bond desired. Since the events of Thunderball and the demise of SPECTRE, Bond had been hunting for Ernst Stavro Blofeld, and at one point was willing to retire from MI6 because he felt the hunt was folly and that his services and abilities could be used better. Using Draco's resources, however, Bond was able to track Blofeld to Switzerland. In return, Bond continued to see Tracy and eventually fell in love with her. They married, but Tracy was murdered on their wedding day in a drive by shooting orchestrated by Blofeld and his henchwoman Irma Bunt in retaliation for Bond foiling their plans.
[edit] Film mentions
The follow up film, Diamonds Are Forever, shows Bond tracking down Blofeld in the pre-title credits, but it is only to be assumed that Bond is doing so to avenge Tracy's death, as she is never mentioned in the film. Indeed, Miss Moneypenny makes a joke about Bond buying her an engagement ring, which would seem heartless if it were common knowledge that Bond was a widower.
Subsequent films also rarely mention Tracy or make reference to the fact that Bond was previously married.
- In The Spy Who Loved Me, when Bond meets Anya Amasova in the Mujava Club bar, she recites a few facts from memory about his life, including that he had been married only once and that his wife was killed. Bond quickly changes the subject; Anya recognises and comments upon Bond's unexpected sensitivity regarding his marriage.
- In For Your Eyes Only, after the gun barrel sequence, Bond lays flowers at her grave (in an English churchyard) before boarding a helicopter that Blofeld has booby-trapped. It's actually in this sequence where Bond ultimately gets revenge for his wife's murder, by impaling an uncredited Blofeld's wheelchair on one of the helicopter's skids and eventually dropping him (wheelchair and all) down a tall industrial smokestack. The headstone clearly reads: "TERESA BOND 1943-1969 Beloved Wife of JAMES BOND We have all the time in the World" – referencing his words (the final words of OHMSS) and the Louis Armstrong song. Interestingly, the dates are wrong, as Diana Rigg was born in 1938, so five years have been shaved off her age for the character, and Bond proposes in OHMSS at Christmas 1969, we then see them getting married and her being killed the following spring or summer (1970).
- In Licence to Kill, after Felix Leiter's wedding, his new wife Della throws her garter at Bond, teasing him, "the one who catches this is the next one to...!" Bond looks visibly pained, and when Della asks Felix about it, Felix makes a short, sad reference to the fact that Bond was married once, "but that was a long time ago."
- In Goldeneye, Alec Trevelyan asks Bond if he has "found forgiveness in the arms of all those willing women for the dead ones you failed to protect?" Although the statement could refer to several women in Bond's past, Tracy is obviously the most prominent woman he has failed to save.
- In The World Is Not Enough, Elektra King (whose father has been killed in the pre-credits sequence) asks Bond whether he has ever lost a loved one. Bond appears uncomfortable and does not answer the question, continuing with a different line of conversation. It is possible to interpret this as a reference instead to the death in the previous film (Tomorrow Never Dies) of his former lover Paris Carver, especially for younger fans in the much-expanded audience for the Pierce Brosnan Bond films.
| Preceded by: Kissy Suzuki |
Official Main Bond Girl 1969 |
Succeeded by: Tiffany Case |
