Celebrity Nooz: lois chiles

Lois Chiles (Actress) - Moonraker

Updated: 9/06/23

Name: Lois Chiles

Birth Name: Lois Cleveland Chiles

Born: April 15, 1947 in Houston, Texas, USA

Claim To Fame: Lois Chiles is an American actress and former fashion model known for her role as Holly Goodhead in the James Bond film Moonraker (1979), and as a hit-and-run driver in 1987's Creepshow 2, and as Holly Harwood in the television series Dallas.

Family Life: She has been married to money manager Richard Gilder since 2005. They were together until his death in 2020.

Info: The daughter of Marion Clay Chiles and Barbara Wayne Kirkland Chiles.

Her paternal uncle was oil tycoon and Texas Rangers owner Eddie Chiles.

She had two brothers: Clay Kirkland Chiles (died 1979) and William Edmonds Chiles, president and CEO of Bristow Group, Inc.

Her last name is pronounced like "files" with a "ch".

Chiles studied at the University of Texas at Austin and the former Finch College in New York City, where she was discovered by a Glamour editor.

She soon had contracts with Wilhelmina Models in New York and Elite Models in Paris.

Chiles lost her youngest brother to non-Hodgkin's lymphoma in 1979, which contributed to her decision to take a three-year hiatus from acting just as her career seemed to be taking off. She became very active in raising money for the research, awareness, and prevention of non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

Had a long-time involvement with, but never married, Don Henley of the Eagles.

Chiles and her husband Richard Gilder we're both honorary co-chairs of Northfield Mount Hermon, and they named the Chiles Theater after her.

Was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2001.

In 2002, she taught a course in film acting at the University of Houston.

Trivia: In the early 1970s, Chiles enjoyed a successful modeling career.

She made her big-screen debut in the 1972 blaxploitation film Together for Days.

In 1973's The Way We Were, she played opposite Robert Redford and Barbra Streisand.

Then she was cast as Jordan Baker in 1974's The Great Gatsby, alongside Mia Farrow and, again, Robert Redford.

In 1978, she appeared, again with Farrow, in the film adaptation of Agatha Christie's Death on the Nile.

In 1979, she appeared as NASA astronaut, scientist and Bond girl Dr. Holly Goodhead opposite Roger Moore's James Bond in Moonraker.

Chiles had initially been approached to star in the previous Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), but she declined the role as she was taking a break from acting at the time.

As a moment of fate, while flying back to America having completed filming Death on the Nile (1978) and found herself sitting next to director Lewis Gilbert who was looking for an actress to play Holly Goodhead in the film Moonraker (1979), and asked her to audition for him.

Her portrayal of reporter Jennifer Mack in James L. Brooks' Broadcast News (1987) was well received, as was her turn in George A. Romero's horror flick Creepshow 2.

In 1989, she appeared uncredited in a short but effective cameo as the estranged mother of Ione Skye's character in Say Anything... (1989).

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 from the United States release.

She has worked in television, playing J.R. Ewing's love interest Holly Harwood, a young woman who inherits her late father's oil company, in the 1982–1983 season of Dallas.

In 2005, friend Quentin Tarantino recruited her to appear in the two-episode finale of season five of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which he wrote and directed.

Where Are They Now: Chiles hasn't acted since 2006, but now has a project in the works. She's cast in the crime-drama Man in the Long Black Coat, which is currently in post-production. No release date has been announced.

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