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James Bond character
Vesper Lynd
Gender	Female
Role	Bond girl / Henchwoman
Affiliation	MVD, MI6 (novel) HM Treasury, Mr. White's organization (film)
Status	Deceased
Portrayed by	Ursula Andress (1967) Eva Green (2006)

Vesper Lynd is a fictional character of Ian Fleming's James Bond novel Casino Royale. In the 1967 film version she is played by Ursula Andress. In the 2006 version she is played by Eva Green.

Vesper is Bond's first romantic interest as presented in Ian Fleming's original novels (although later prequel works by Charlie Higson would present other candidates). Other than Bond's future wife Tracy, she is the only woman in the series to whom Bond proposes and is practically the only romantic interest to be a fellow intelligence agent, apart from the movie's Miranda Frost, who turns out to be Graves' double agent. (Gala Brand is a policewoman, not an intelligence agent, and she ultimately rebuffs Bond's advances, being engaged to another man; Tatiana Romanova is in the intelligence business but works for the KGB; and Bond's relationship with MI6 employee Mary Goodnight remains ambiguous at the end of the final book to feature her).

Vesper Lynd is a pun on West Berlin. Like her namesake, the Cold War-era city of Berlin, Vesper's loyalties are split down the middle. Fleming created a cocktail recipe in the novel that Bond names after Vesper. The "Vesper martini" became very popular after the novel's publication, and gave rise to the famous "shaken, not stirred" catchphrase immortalized in the Bond films. The actual name for the drink (as well as its complete recipe) is uttered on screen for the first time in the 2006 adaptation of Casino Royale.

Vesper works at MI6 headquarters as personal assistant to Head of section S. She is loaned to Bond, much to his irritation, to assist him in his mission to bankrupt Le Chiffre, the paymaster of a SMERSH-controlled trade union. She poses as a radio seller working with Rene Mathis and later as Bond's companion in order to infiltrate Royale-les-Eaux, the casino in which Le Chiffre frequently gambles. After Bond takes all of Le Chiffre's money in a high-stakes game of baccarat, (Baccarat was played in the novel, Poker in the 2006 movie.) Vesper is kidnapped by Le Chiffre's thugs, who also nab Bond when he tries to rescue her. Both are rescued after Le Chiffre is assassinated by a SMERSH agent, but only after Bond has been tortured.

Vesper visits Bond every day in the hospital, and the two grow very close; much to his own surprise, Bond develops genuine feelings for her, and even dreams of leaving the service and marrying her. After he is released from the hospital, they go on a holiday together, and eventually become lovers.

Vesper holds a terrible secret, however: she is a double agent working for MVD, and worked with Bond because she was under orders to see that he did not escape Le Chiffre. (Her kidnapping was staged in order to lure Bond into Le Chiffre's clutches.) Prior to her meeting Bond, she had been romantically involved with an RAF operative. This man had been captured by SMERSH, and revealed information about Vesper under torture. Hence, SMERSH was using this operative to blackmail Vesper into helping them. After the death of Le Chiffre, she is initially hopeful that she and Bond can start a new life, but realizes this is impossible when she notices a SMERSH operative, Gettler, tracking her and Bond's movements. Consumed with guilt and certain that SMERSH will find and kill both of them, she commits suicide, leaving a note admitting her treachery and pledging her love to Bond.

Bond copes with the loss by renouncing her as a traitor and going back to work as though nothing has happened. He phones his superiors and informs them of Vesper's treason and death, coldly saying "The bitch is dead."

Bond's feelings for Vesper are not totally extinguished, however; Fleming's eleventh novel, On Her Majesty's Secret Service, reveals that he makes an annual pilgrimage to Royale-les-Eaux to visit her grave. In the novel Goldfinger, moreover, when a drugged Bond believes that he has died and is preparing to enter heaven, he worries about how to introduce Tilly Masterton, who he believes has died along with him, to Vesper.

Vesper Lynd, in the 1967 version of Casino Royale, was portrayed by Ursula Andress, who portrayed another Bond girl, Honey Ryder, in the 1962 film version of Dr. No.

In this version, which bore little resemblance to the novel, she had no trace of the inner turmoil so prevalent in the novel. In the film, Vesper is depicted as a former secret agent who has since become a multi-millionaire with a penchant for wearing ridiculously extravagant outfits at her office ("because if I wore it in the street people might stare"). Bond (played by David Niven), now in the position of M at MI6, uses a discount for her past due taxes to bribe her into becoming another 007 agent, and to recruit baccarat expert Evelyn Tremble (Peter Sellers) into stopping Le Chiffre (played by Orson Welles).

Vesper and Tremble have an affair during which she eliminates an enemy agent sent to seduce Tremble ("Miss Goodthighs"). Ultimately, however, she betrays Tremble to Le Chiffre and SMERSH, declaring to Tremble, "Never trust a rich spy" before killing him with a machine gun hidden inside a bagpipe. Though her ultimate fate is not revealed in the film, in the opening credits (which includes scenes from the movie) she is shown as an angel playing a harp, showing her to be one of the "seven James Bonds at Casino Royale" at the end of the film after everyone is killed by an atomic explosion.

In the 2006 film version of the novel, Vesper is a foreign liaison agent from the HM Treasury's Financial Action Task Force assigned to make sure that Bond adequately manages the funds provided by MI6. However, she is secretly a double agent working for the anonymous organization that Mr. White, one of the film's villains, represents. She is extorted into this role by a threat to her French-Algerian boyfriend's life. The necklace she wears depicts an "Algerian love knot," and, presumably, was a gift from her boyfriend. The film does not indicate the fate of her boyfriend.

Vesper is initially skeptical about Bond's ego and at first is unwilling to be his trophy at the poker tournament with Le Chiffre. She refused to bankroll him after he went bankrupt on an early hand. However, she assists Bond during his life-death struggle with Steven Obanno, knocking away the gun from the latter, though she afterwards retreats to the shower feeling that she has unwashable guilt or blood on her hands from helping to kill Obanno. Bond kisses it off her hands to comfort her and they return to the casino. Vesper shortly afterwards saves Bond's life when he is poisoned by Valenka, connecting a key wire that he missed which revives him. Her kidnapping by Le Chiffre causes Bond to give chase; they fall into Le Chiffre's trap but both are saved by Mr. White.

As in the novel, Bond wants to start a new life with Vesper and they vacation in Venice. However, she is still doing the bidding of Mr. White's employer. Despite complying with her orders to retrieve the money, the thugs lock her in an elevator. She is trapped as the flooded building sinks, but she resigns herself to a tragic end and locks herself in, even as Bond frantically tries to open the elevator. In her final gesture, not unlike in the casino hotel shower, she does not try to escape but she kisses Bond's hands to clear him of guilt. Bond finally manages to get her out and tries to revive her, but she has drowned.

Bond now holds the same disdain he feels for her betrayal in the novel, uttering the same quote "The job's done; the bitch is dead.", but M reprimands him and reveals Vesper's reasons for her manipulation by the villains. M reveals that Vesper cut a deal with Mr. White's organization to spare Bond in return for the $150 million. When Bond opens her cell phone afterwards, he finds that she has left him the name of the mastermind of the plot (Mr. White) and his phone number, enabling Bond to track down and confront White.

The character of Vesper Lynd does not appear in the 1954 adaptation of Casino Royale. Instead the character was replaced by a new creation called Valerie Mathis, played by Linda Christian. who is depicted as an American (the actress who played her, however, was born to European parents, in Mexico). Although she also betrays Bond in the adaptation, the character does not die. (The character's last name is borrowed from a character in the original novel named Rene Mathis).