Originally Published: 2009-03-15

“Can good pasta be found in Toronto – they don’t overcook it here, do they?” Ursula Andress is full of energy and in a joking mood. There’s not even the time to be properly seated when the actress – for years a resident in Italy – seizes the opportunity to joke.
But when required, she is serious-minded, for example, when she wears the hat of spokesperson for Timeless Woman – an osteoporosis campaign organized by Osteoporosis Canada, and she was in Toronto this past week for the campaign launch press conference.
Andress submits to the journalists with such ease and spontaneity that for her time flies and she has a contagious joie-de-vivre that hasn’t in the least bit been dented by the progressive bone weakening disease she is afflicted with.
It’s not by chance, in fact, that she was chosen as spokesperson for the campaign. Andress, like many women – one in four Canadians according to statistics – suffers from osteoporosis. But her vitality and energy is the best way of sending out a message of hope.
“I was diagnosed with the disease when I was 60,” she said. “I’ve been treating it since, but I haven’t changed my routine.”
The former Bond Girl who once enchanted the world by appearing in a very brief scene wearing a white bikini and two seashells in one of the many 007 adventures, continues living an active life.
“The audience adopted me as a main character, but in reality, I do very little in that film. I run around a lot and say just two words,” she said. “But your destiny comes from fleeting moments, and that was the right moment for me since the public was in search of a new female image, not shapely like Sophia Loren and Marilyn Monroe, but sportier looking.”
Andress remains active. She tells journalists she still has the habit of swimming and walks so fast that it is often difficult for others to keep up. The only thing she has always disliked is using weights.
“I prefer lifting vases of flowers,” she jokes, referring to her passion for gardening. She is pleased to have offered her image to the women’s campaign – especially for those over 50 – to raise awareness of a disease that afflicts many of them. She is aware that her image and name is important to the campaign because, in her words: “it will encourage women to ask for help, and have their bone density checked.”

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