CAVEGIRL CAMPAIGN WINNER

The winner of the casting campaign for "the next Raquel Welch" (poster shown yesterday) was Julie Ege. The Norwegian beauty was close to Welch's equal in looks and she was striking enough to land the role. With a mane of hair and a body to boot, she played Nala in Don Chaffey's CREATURES THE WORLD FORGOT (1971).

Born on 12 November 1943, Miss Ege appeared in two other genre films in her 30-year career, Hammer's THE LEGEND OF THE 7 GOLDEN VAMPIRES and THE MUTATIONS, but she is best known for her roles in UP POMPEII (1971) and ON HER MAJESTY'S SECRET SERVICE (1969). She was also a Penthouse Pet in the 1960's.

After retiring from acting she became a nurse. Later, she suffered from multiple cancers and tragically died at the age of 64 on 29 April 2008. She published her autobiography, "Naked", in 2002, chronicling her career and her illness.

From sex symbol to angel of the wards

When Norwegian beauty queen Julie Ege recently died of cancer, the story of an extraordinary life was revealed. Danny Buckland unravels her journey from factory worker to model, international film star and nurse.

By Danny Buckland | May 11, 2008 | Express.co.UK

The obituaries for Norwegian Bond Girl Julie Ege, who died last month, swept in on a wave of seductive imagery. She was the poster-girl beauty of a generation and the stunning pictures from her raft of Seventies sex comedies provided a gallery of her charms that were celebrated with cinematic nostalgia.

The deserved recognition for her place on British film history’s timeline sold her short, though, for behind the saucy poses lies the remarkable story of a girl from a bicycle factory who became an international sex symbol, gave it all up and devoted her life to caring for others.

Julie’s astonishing life was dominated by a 22-year battle with cancer and a determination to support other sufferers through their dark days.

Condolences have been flooding in to Julie’s Oslo home since her death aged 64 on April 29. There have been notes from film fans but also many from members of the public who viewed her as an inspiration for tackling cancer and empowering women across Scandinavia.

She discovered her breast cancer while revising for nursing exams and believes the knowledge from studying helped her to detect the disease early  Sadly, though, this was was only the start as she then struggled with ovarian and lung cancer.

“We’ve been overwhelmed by the reaction from people whose lives she touched,” said her 29-year-old daughter Ella Ege Bye in an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express. “She got cancer at 42 and was always open about it. She also retrained to become a nurse in her 40s and that gave lots of women the confidence to change their lives.

“She was an incredibly beautiful woman but also a vibrant, caring person who had an impact on a generation of women. There was a different persona from the film star because she moved away from the bright lights to live in the country where she would make her own jams, grow vegetables and make her own clothes.

She was very independent and self-sufficient but then she could just transform and look so beautiful and glamorous.”

Ella, who is seven months pregnant, added: “It is so tragic that she has gone and she won’t be here for the birth but her presence will never leave us. She had so much energy and one of the saddest parts of her getting ill was that she could not go out for walks in the country.”

Julie’s funeral took place in Norwegian capital Oslo last Friday and the congregation sang Imagine by John Lennon in a moving tribute.

She was working at a bicycle factory in the town of Sandness, south-west Norway, when her beauty was first noticed. She began modelling at 15, took the Miss Norway crown at 19, entered the Miss Universe competition and was soon travelling around the world. She married a Norwegian army officer and then a British dentist but both marriages failed.

Stardom really beckoned when she was picked for a part in the 1969 Bond film On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and she then almost trademarked the role of exotic temptress in a string of risqué films throughout the Seventies. She was pursued by high-profile actors and stars but she dated former Beatles confidant and record producer Tony Bramwell for seven years.

“She was the love of my life. She was amazingly beautiful and got the sort of coverage that Princess Di had but she was also a dynamic person and a wonderful mother,” said Bramwell, author of the acclaimed book, Magical Mystery Tours: My Life with the Beatles. “She was very funny and completely got British humour. That made her a natural for those sort of films, but there was so much more to her than a beautiful figure.

“Those risqué films became soft porn, which she refused, so she turned to stage work. She really was a template for a lot of glamorous figures today who make fortunes. She got paid very little and had lousy agents. If she had started a decade ago, she would have made millions.”

The couple drifted apart and Julie returned to Norway where she joined the influential Rogaland Theatre in Stavanger. Fellow actress Gretelill Tangen, 58, recalled: “We have never had so much attention as when Julie joined us but there was nothing of the prima donna about her.

“She had no formal training as an actress but was willing to learn from older actors and everyone loved her because she was so down to earth.”

Her eldest daughter Joanna Syson, 38, a film editor based in Shanghai, was born in west London and remembers the early years on the London showbiz circuit and having Queen guitarist Brian May as a neighbour. “Mum wasn’t materialistic at all and we’d go around in a battered Mini,” said Joanna. “She loved being in the garden and would be digging around in the afternoon and then go inside and transform herself into this beautiful, glamorous woman to go to shows or meet contacts.

“It is amazing to think that she started out in a bicycle factory and then became an international star and then a nurse. She spoke publicly about her cancer because she wanted to help other women and hope they wouldn’t suffer in silence or isolation. It became a cause for her.

“She had a mastectomy and then spoke about plastic surgery and her openness was a breath of fresh air. She refused to let it blight her life and hoped others would feel the same way. The fact that she was studying and determined to create a new life in her 40s also inspired people.”

Julie wrote her autobiography, Naked, and still attended premieres and events in Oslo while holding down a demanding job as a nurse in the Buskerud Hospital in Drammen. “She was a nurse and loved the job,” said Joanna. “You would never have known she had this rich, glamorous past if you’d met her. You would have just been struck by her energy, her smile and her determination to help people.

“Even at the very end she was strong and stunningly beautiful. The last thing she did was give us a big, blinding smile. It was a beautiful moment and she has gone way too soon.”

Julie’s family are not the only ones to feel so bereft. Her saucy film roles may have initially shocked the small-town society from whence she came, but Julie Ege soon won them over with her unpretentious and hardworking attitude.

“At first, her roles in glamorous films were frowned upon simply because no one from Norway had done that stuff before,” said Rogaland Theatre administrator Knud Helge Robberstad, “but she was much loved throughout the nation for her acting ability, her openness and her dignity. It was a great sense of national loss when she passed away.”

In the town that initially damned her, they are organising a statue to commemorate the life of a woman who stepped away from the showbiz shallows to have a deep, lasting impact on society.