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LOIS CHILES

Lois Chiles played Dr. Holly Goodhead in the 1979 James Bond 007 film, 'Moonraker'. Speaking to Peter Lattman of 'The New York Times' in 2012, then 65-year-old Lois Chiles made the observation, "You have to realize this was the 1970s and women were very upset about being portrayed as sexual objects. So becoming a Bond girl was not necessarily desirable. There was also this stigma that this was the peak and you were never going to work again. That was painful to hear. 

"In a way, Holly was a bridge to the future. The previous Bond film, 'The Spy Who Loved Me', was fabulous but Barbara Bach’s character was far more sexual than Holly. Wearing that yellow spacesuit during much of the movie didn’t make me very alluring, and some fans were disappointed. But it was their concession to the women’s movement." 

The 11th sequel based on Ian Fleming's works assigned James Bond 007 to find a missing space shuttle only to discover a city in space. Michael Lonsdale played billionaire Hugo Drax, the "ugliest man in the world" who planned to "destroy-the-world-to-save-it" by wiping out all human life using deadly nerve gas and changing the destiny of humanity by repopulating the planet "with a select group of genetically perfect specimens". 

Cost $33 million to produce, 'Moonraker' took moviegoers on a world tour of exotic places from Venice to Dover in England, Paris, Brazil and to the lost city of Tikal in Guatemala in Central America (Land of the Feathered Serpent). Lois pointed out, "In the last line of 'Moonraker' I told Bond to 'take me around the world one more time.' And in a way that is what the Bond movies do – they take you around the world, both literally and metaphorically. It’s become such a big franchise." 

A professor of astronomy at the University of Maine, Orono in 1979, Neil Comins, told the press, "Ten years ago (in 1969) we were at the climax of man's space flight." Reporter Marilyn Hackett elaborated, “Space is a frontier that has excited the imaginations of Americans since before those first steps taken by Edwin Aldrin and Neil Armstrong on the earth's moon. The idea of conquering those 238,857 miles between the earth and its moon excited most Americans then. A space shuttle, much like the one in 'Moonraker', will soon be on the horizon."

Professor Comins continued, "We are certainly not at the end of where we can go. There is a tremendous potential in the space program. There certainly is a philosophic point of having man go as far as is technologically possible. The technical examples of the 'Moonraker' are exactly identical to the space shuttle. They got that down to a tee." 

Growing up in the small oil town of Alice near Corpus Christi in Texas, Lois Chiles came full circle in the 1982-83 TV season playing an heiress of the Lone Star State oil firm on 'Dallas'. "Our town was so flat you could see the next town 10 miles away," Lois told Susan Peters of 'People Weekly' at the time. On 'Dallas', Lois played Holly Harwood. "It was strange not knowing if Holly was a good or bad girl, or what she’d do next," Lois observed. "I always felt out of place in Texas. If you had creative urges, there was something wrong with you." 

Larry Hagman offered, "She’s (Holly) charming, a soft lady who plays a tough cookie. I just tell her (Lois), 'Don’t worry about the lines, play the moment. That’s what you’re selling, not the words.'" Power play was the name of the game on 'Dallas' in the 1982-83 TV season. The reading of Jock Ewing's will pitted J.R. and Bobby in a race for presidency of Ewing Oil with whoever made the most profits with his share of the company at the end of that year, automatically became the president of the company. 

Believing the contest would bring the Ewing family to the brink of civil war, Bobby's wife Pamela joined his mother Miss Ellie in a legal move to have his father's Jock's will overturned. However the judge refused to grant Miss Ellie's motion. To put him ahead in the race for presidency, J.R. bought a refinery and used the 25% share of Harwood Oil he had negotiated with Holly when she hired him to help her run Harwood Oil and persuaded Walt Driscoll of the Office of Land Management to grant him rights to drill for more crude oil than regulations allowed. J.R. required the extra crude oil to supply gasoline to gas stations selling low-priced gas as well as selling low-priced gas to an embargoed country, Cuba.

"The 'Dallas' series," it had been said, "is one of the main draws for tourism in the city … The series also helped the city's image as far as international business is concerned. Japanese and European car companies know what Dallas looks like because of the beginning of the TV show and they want those same glass buildings in the background of their commercials." Texas became the Republic of Texas in 1836. Then in 1845 it joined the Federal Union to become a state. Since 1519, six flags had been flown over Texas – France, Spain, Mexico, Republic of Texas, the Confederacy and the United States.

Leonard Katzman made the point, "Texas has always had kind of a myth quality about it. Dallas was the place that everybody knew. It just seemed like that was a grabber by itself initially, just the name!" Patrick Duffy added, "What 'Dallas' may have done is established a different kind of attitude about television. It wasn't art for art's sake, but it also wasn't blatant entertainment. It activated a fan base that went beyond just, 'I watched the cop show last night.' We became one of the weekly events on television."

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