Margaret Nolan, 'Hard Day's Night', Goldfinger' and 'Carry On' actress, dies at 76

Actress and model Margaret Nolan, who appeared in the Beatles movie Hard Day's Night and the Carry On films, has died aged 76.

The news was confirmed to Variety by cinematographer Oscar Deeks, her son.

She began a career in modelling in the early 60s, snaring a role in the Richard Lester-directed Beatles comedy caper Hard Day's Night in 1964 as the girl at the casino.

That same year, she played Dink, James Bond's masseuse in Goldfinger, and was later painted gold for the movie's posters, soundtrack cover and title sequence (though Shirley Eaton played the role of the slain Jill Masterson, who is painted gold and suffocates in the movie).

A year later, she starred again in a second movie for a Merseyside band, Ferry Across The Mersey, made by Gerry and the Pacemakers, set in and around the Liverpool beat scene, and then in French director Marcel Carné's Three Rooms In Manhattan, which featured a young Robert De Niro in an uncredited scene.

Many roles followed in the Carry On movie series, first in 1965 in Carry On Cowboy, and then in movies like Carry On At Your Convenience, Carry On Matron, Carry On Dick, Carry On Henry and Carry On Girls, in which she famously fought with Barbara Windsor.

She also frequently appeared alongside Spike Milligan in his influential series Q, while her other TV work included the likes of Last Of The Summer Wine, The Persuaders!, Steptoe And Son, Brideshead Revisited, and The Sweeney.

She used her career onscreen in her later work as a visual artist, bringing together her publicity shots to make graphic, often disturbing photo montages as a comment on how women are viewed, and showed her work at a number of high-profile galleries.

Her last appearance on screen was in a small role for Edgar Wright's forthcoming Last Night In Soho.

Watch: Krysty Wilson-Cairns on Edgar Wright’s Last Night In Soho

Wright has paid tribute to her on Twitter.