The story of beautiful wartime spy Christine Granville, who was Ian Fleming’s lover and the inspiration for the James Bond character Vesper Lynd, is to be made into a major film acording to The Daily Mail.It is to be called Christine: War My Love, and is due begin filming in June. No word yet on who will be playing the lead but Kate Winslet is in the running as is the most recent Vesper Lynd, Eva Green. It will be directed by Agnieszka Holland, whose credits include Total Eclipse, starring Leonardo DiCaprio.
The movie follows the exploits of Polish countess Krystyna Skarbek, who adopted the name Christine Granville for her wartime exploits with Britain’s Special Operations Executive. She was awarded the George Medal for her work against the Gestapo and sounds like she was the female version of James Bond.
Her courageous actions, including a treacherous crossing into her native Poland from Hungary with the help of an Olympic skiing champion, helped saved countless lives.
After the war, she drifted into a series of affairs – including one with Fleming – before enrolling as a stewardess on a cruise ship where she met the man who was to murder her in 1952.
Ms Holland said: ‘Krystyna was almost certainly the most remarkable female spy of the Second World War. She was intelligent, courageous, seductive and bewitchingly attractive and men were willing to sacrifice everything for her and go to any lengths to have and keep her.’
Skarbek’s cloak-and-dagger exploits saw daring raids into occupied Poland, with forays into Egypt and Syria. Parachuted into occupied France in 1944, she took on the persona ‘Pauline Armand’ to rally the Resistance.
After the war, Skarbek apparently found it difficult to settle. She took a job as a stewardess on a liner between Southampton and Australia, where she befriended the man who would later kill her.
An inadequate loner and obsessive, Dennis Muldowney turned into a pest, leading to a final confrontation at a hotel in Kensington. In a fit of rage, Muldowney brutally stabbed her to death. She was 44. Muldowney was sentenced to death at the Old Bailey, declaring on the way to the gallows: ‘To kill is the final possession.’
All sounds pretty amazing stuff and I had heard nothing about her life before this. It should make for a cracking film.
Who would you like to see play Christine? Kate, Eva or someone else?
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