Even with the fate of the republic hanging in the balance, I can’t stop myself from pausing just a few moments to recall the kind of elegance and glamour we once associated with Hollywood in those halcyon days when actors and actresses had dashing affairs but few annoying political opinions.

These thoughts were triggered by the death last week in Palm Desert of Linda Christian. You’ve probably never heard of Linda Christian, but in her time, the old Life magazine dubbed her “the anatomic bomb.” Christian was the first Bond girl, having played 007’s love interest in a 1954 television adaptation of Casino Royale. As her obituary in the London Telegraph notes, Christian—87 at the time of her death—was “the only Bond girl whose affair with 007 remained unconsummated.”