Joanna Pettet, perhaps best known for her role as a spy recruited by her father, David Niven’s James Bond, in Casino Royale, has died.
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Her death on July 7 was announced on Facebook by friend and former manager, Pam DuBois, who noted that Pettet passed away on the anniversary of her son’s death. Damien Zachary Cord was her son with actor and former husband Alex Cord.
“We all loved Jo,” DuBois wrote in her July 8 post. “But there was one person who loved her more. And yesterday on the 31st anniversary of his death. Damien Zach took his mother to heaven, and there she will stay with him forever.”
Details of Pettet’s death were not shared.
Born in London on November 16, 1942, Pettet moved to New York City at age 16 to study under Sanford Meisner. At 19, she made her Broadway debut in Take Her, She’s Mine (1961), according to Deadline.
Pettet’s James Bond Outing Wasn’t Well Received…
She starred as Kay in the hit film adaptation of Mary McCarthy’s The Group. She appeared alongside Candice Bergen, Joan Hackett, and Jessica Walter. Following eight Vassar graduates in the 1930s, the controversial movie touched on then-taboo topics like homosexuality, contraception, and abortion.
Pettet also took on the role of Mata Bond in Casino Royale (1967), a James Bond parody that failed to win over critics. The film featured an ensemble cast including Peter Sellers, David Niven, Woody Allen, and William Holden. In it, she portrayed the love child of James Bond and the spy Mata Hari.
Her other feature films included The Night of the Generals (1967) and Blue (1968).
On August 8, 1969, Pettet had lunch with a pregnant Sharon Tate. The outing was just hours before the Manson Family murdered Tate, her unborn child, and four others. This meeting was dramatized in Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood (2019), in which Rumer Willis played Pettet.
Joanna Pettet’s Prolific TV Career
Meanwhile, in the 1970s, she starred in numerous made-for-TV movies and became a horror fan favorite with roles in Welcome to Arrow Beach (1974) and The Evil (1978). She was also a frequent television guest star, notably headlining the highly regarded Night Gallery episode “The House” (1970), a ghost story elevated by her presence. She went on to appear in three other episodes of the series.
Per IMDb, her other TV appearances included Route 66 (1964), Dr. Kildare (1966), Mannix (1971), and McCloud (1973). She also popped up in Police Woman (1975), The Love Boat (1979–1982), and Murder, She Wrote (1987).
Her final acting role was in an ABC Afterschool Special (1989), though it aired after her last feature film, Terror in Paradise (1990).
Pettet survived a major health scare in 2021, undergoing shoulder-replacement surgery after being trapped under a rock in the California desert for hours.
Following her 1989 divorce from Cord, she never remarried.
Pettet was 83.