Irma Bunt is the secondary antagonist in the 1963 James Bond novel On Her Majesty's Secret Service and its 1969 film adaptation, a supporting antagonist in the novel You Only Live Twice, and the main antagonist in the short story Blast From The Past. She is the main henchwoman of Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
In the film adaptation of On Her Majesty's Secret Service, she was portrayed by the late Ilse Steppat.
Literary Biography[]
On Her Majesty's Secret Service[]
Bunt first appears in On Her Majesty's Secret Service, in which she is the matron for criminal mastermind Ernst Stavro Blofeld's "agents of death", women kept at the Piz Gloria clinic who have been brainwashed by SPECTRE to spread biological warfare through Britain, destroying the country's agriculture. After Bond discovers the plot, MI6 destroy the clinic, seemingly killing Bunt. However, it is revealed in the last few pages that she survived, as she and Blofeld kill Bond's wife Tracy in a drive-by shooting just after their wedding.
You Only Live Twice[]
Bunt is revealed to have escaped in You Only Live Twice, in which it's revealed that she and Blofeld fled to Japan after the events of the previous book, and are now hiding in a castle, where Bunt is moonlighting as Blofeld's wife. Bond observes the two walking in Blofeld's "Garden of Death", a garden of Blofeld's full of poisonous plants that he uses to help depressed Japanese to commit suicide in return for their money to refinance SPECTRE. After attempting to follow them, Bond is lead into a trap, and Blofeld, Bunt and ten guards beat him to a pulp before throwing him into "the Question Room", where he will be killed unless he admits his identity and is taken away. However, Bond manages to escape from Blofeld however, and throws a stave at Bunt, knocking her out. He then disarms Blofeld and strangles him to death, before blowing up the castle, leaving Bunt to be killed in the explosion.
Blast From The Past[]
Bunt returns as the main antagonist in Raymond Benson's short story Blast From The Past, in which she is revealed to have been horribly disfigured in the explosion of Blofeld's castle. Swearing revenge on Bond for Blofeld's death, she murders James Suzuki, Bond's son by Kissy Suzuki (Bond's lover in You Only Live Twice) by nicking his arm with a razor blade dipped in fugu poison, and rigs a bomb in a failed attempt to kill Bond. Her henchmen later kidnap Bond and hold him prisoner in a warehouse. Bunt then attempts to kill Bond by forcibly shaving him with the poisoned blade, but his fellow MI-6 agent Cheryl Haven arrives and shoots one of the gunmen down, forcing Bunt to flee pursued by Bond, who shoots her dead.
Film Biography[]
A middle-aged woman with red hair, Irma lives in a clinic on Piz Gloria with her boss. First introduced meeting Bond at a train station before transporting him to the clinic, she looks after girls who have allergies, but she also has far more sinister plans, changing them into Ernst's henchwoman, a group dubbed the "Angels of Death". Bunt's main goal is keep any interaction between Bond (Disguised as Sir Hilary), and the girls plentiful. In the book, Bond tricks her into believing she is actually a duchess, but just subtly insults the woman in the movie.
Escaping Piz Gloria after he is discovered, Irma, along with her men, chases after Bond in a car. However, she fails to stop him and nearly escapes death after he car explodes in a stock car rally, Tracy tricking her to go through it as a distraction. Bunt and her helpers (Barring one unlucky one, who is in the blast radius when trying to escape.) make it out right as it blows up.
She is seen again at the end of the film at Bond's wedding, shooting at him and Tracy from a speeding car, killing the latter though Bond barely managed to dodge her shots. Although Irma was the one using the weapon, Bond held the driver, Blofeld, more responsible.
External links[]
- Irma Bunt (literary character) at the James Bond Wiki
- Irma Bunt (film character) at the James Bond Wiki
