Lois Chiles

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Lois Chiles as Holly Goodhead in Moonraker.

Lois Cleveland Chiles (born April 15, 1947) is an American actress and former fashion model best known for her role as Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond film Moonraker.

Chiles was born in Houston, Texas and raised in Alice. She received her education at the University of Texas at Austin and the former Finch College in New York City, where she was discovered by a Glamour magazine editor looking for a young woman to feature on the cover of the magazine's annual college issue. She landed the job and soon had a contract with Wilhelmina Models. Throughout the early 1970s, Chiles maintained top model status. She made her big-screen debut in Together For Days in 1972, followed by 1973's The Way We Were, in which she played opposite Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand as the college sweetheart of Redford's character. Riding on the success of that film, she gave a memorable performance as Jordan Baker in 1974's The Great Gatsby, alongside Mia Farrow and, again, Robert Redford. She appeared in Death on the Nile in 1978, and in 1979 she was seen in what is perhaps her most famous role, that of Dr. Holly Goodhead opposite Roger Moore's James Bond in Moonraker, which added to her résumé the title of Bond girl.

Chiles lost her younger brother to Non-Hodgkin lymphoma in 1978, which contributed to her decision to take a three-year break from acting just as her career seemed to be blossoming. Unfortunately, her film career never fully recovered, and she struggled to find roles of the caliber she had previously enjoyed, though her portrayal of reporter Jennifer Mack in 1987's Broadcast News was well received. She has since appeared as a stuffy high school principal in the 1996 Disney film Wish Upon a Star and as a frightened cruise passenger in the critically-panned Speed 2: Cruise Control in 1997, and she made a cameo appearance in the international release of the 1997 Bond-spoof Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery, though her scene was cut in the U.S. release.

Chiles has also done some work in television, playing J.R.'s love interest Holly Harwood in the 1982–1983 season of Dallas and appearing in Murder, She Wrote in 1990. In 2005, friend Quentin Tarantino, with whom she had previously worked on the set of Curdled in 1996, personally recruited her to appear in the two-episode finale of season five of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which Tarantino wrote and directed.

Outside of acting, Chiles' personal life has been tumultuous. Shortly after the death of her younger brother, with whom she was especially close, she ended a long-term romance with Don Henley of the Eagles. Her father, M. Clay Chiles (brother of oil tycoon and Texas Rangers owner Eddie Chiles), died in 1997, and in 2001 she battled breast cancer. In 2005 she was married for the first time, to Wall Street stockbroker and philanthropist Richard Gilder.