Claudine Auger creates one of the most unusual and visually arresting glamour portraits associated with THUNDERBALL (1965) in this rare color studio image, posed topless against a spectacular golden-yellow background while wearing Domino Derval’s distinctive black-and-white striped bikini bottom. With her arms gracefully crossed across her chest, hair swept back and body presented in an elegant profile, Auger transforms an exceptionally daring pose into a sophisticated study of line, color and classic 1960s Bond glamour.

And that extraordinary yellow changes everything.

No beach.

No ocean.

No tropical landscape.

Just Auger, the striped bikini and an almost uninterrupted field of brilliant color.

A Striking Departure from Familiar THUNDERBALL Glamour

Directed by Terence Young and starring Sean Connery as James Bond, THUNDERBALL (1965) was the fourth film in the Eon Productions 007 series and generated some of the most recognizable glamour photography of the Connery era.

Claudine Auger, portraying Dominique “Domino” Derval, was photographed extensively in swimwear, elegant costumes and the spectacular tropical environments associated with the production.

That familiar visual history is precisely what makes this studio portrait so distinctive.

It abandons the environment completely.

Auger kneels in profile against a seamless golden-yellow background.

Her dark striped bikini bottom provides the strongest graphic contrast in the image, while her crossed arms preserve the elegance of the topless pose.

The result is revealing without becoming visually complicated.

Everything has been reduced to shape.

Color.

Posture.

And Auger herself.

The profile composition is particularly effective.

Her body creates a long, controlled curve from the shoulders through the waist and hips, while her upright posture gives the pose an almost sculptural quality.

Then Auger turns her face upward toward the camera.

That small movement breaks the profile.

Suddenly we have direct engagement.

The body moves sideways.

The eyes come back toward us.

And the photograph acquires considerably more personality than a conventional profile study.

Her swept-back hair strengthens the effect.

Nothing obscures the face.

Nothing interferes with the clean outline of her shoulders.

Nothing competes with the geometry of the pose.

Even the striped bikini bottom functions almost like a graphic design element.

Against the uninterrupted yellow, those alternating black-and-white lines become extraordinarily prominent.

Yellow.

Black.

White.

Skin.

The palette could hardly be simpler.

And that simplicity is precisely why it works.

For the Claudine Auger collector, however, the unusual nature of the pose provides the deeper WHY.

The familiar THUNDERBALL publicity archive gives us Domino in swimsuits.

Domino in dresses.

Domino beside the water.

Domino surrounded by the tropical visual world that became inseparable from the film.

This portrait removes virtually all of those familiar ingredients.

What remains is pure studio glamour.

That makes it an important visual counterpoint within a deeper collection.

The striped bikini maintains the connection with the familiar Domino imagery, but everything above it changes.

The topless pose is considerably more daring.

The background becomes dramatically artificial.

The tropical environment disappears.

And Auger is transformed from a Bond character inhabiting a location into the complete subject of the photograph.

There is nowhere else for the eye to go.

That is why the brilliant yellow background is more than decoration.

It isolates her.

It intensifies her silhouette.

It makes the black-and-white stripes almost vibrate against the color.

And at thumbnail size, it makes this photograph virtually impossible to confuse with another THUNDERBALL image.

That immediate visual identity matters to a collector.

This isn't merely another beautiful Claudine Auger publicity photograph.

It occupies its own place within the larger body of imagery associated with the film.

The location photographs give us Domino’s world.

This studio portrait gives us Claudine Auger as pure 1960s glamour.

And because the composition is so restrained, the unusual pose never needs excessive embellishment.

The photograph already does the work.

A woman.

A striped bikini.

A daring profile.

An extraordinary yellow field.

Nothing else is necessary.

Preserved within the KissMeMonster photographic archive, this rare color studio portrait has been carefully restored to retain the spectacular golden-yellow background, the crisp black-and-white pattern of Domino’s distinctive striped bikini bottom, the natural warmth of Claudine Auger’s complexion and the beautifully controlled detail of her swept-back hair—preserving an exceptionally distinctive example of glamour photography associated with THUNDERBALL.

Explore more archival photographs of Claudine Auger from her celebrated film career in our complete Claudine Auger collection.