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Striking dark-haired beauty Zena Moyra Marshall was born in Nairobi, Kenya, with French ancestry from her mother and English/Irish from her father. After her father's early death, her mother remarried and moved the family to Leicestershire. Zena was educated at St Mary's Roman Catholic School in Ascot. Her passion for acting developed during a wartime theatrical tour with the Entertainments National Service Association (ENSA) while she was still a teenager. Following her training at RADA, her exotic appearance earned her a contract with the Rank Organisation, where she was molded by the so-called 'charm school' into a sultry temptress and second lead in costume dramas, romantic melodramas, and thrillers.
Marshall made her film debut with a minor role as a handmaiden in the stagey, fading epic Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Notably, this film also marked the uncredited screen debut of future James Bond star Roger Moore, who appeared as a Roman soldier. Her subsequent career was slow to take off. For several years, she was cast only in minor supporting roles in productions from Rank affiliates like GFD/Two Cities and Gainsborough, including films such as Sleeping Car to Trieste (1948), Snowbound (1948), and So Long at the Fair (1950). A brief stint in Hollywood led to the uninspired Allied Artists musical Let's Be Happy (1957), where she played a passionate redhead competing with star Vera-Ellen for crooner Tony Martin's affections. During the 1950s, she revitalized her stage career and, by the decade's end, toured Germany and the Netherlands with The Late Edwina Black. Marshall was among the first actresses to appear in a British television commercial (for shampoo) on early ITV. Ultimately, television became her preferred medium; she delivered some of her best performances in three episodes of Danger Man (1960), starring Patrick McGoohan, between 1961 and 1964.
Zena Marshall's most notable role was as the Eurasian double agent Miss Taro in the inaugural Bond film, Dr. No (1962). Her character was the first woman Bond seduced, preceding his encounter with Ursula Andress as Honey Ryder. Originally, Marguerite LeWars, the reigning Miss Jamaica, was to screen test for Miss Taro but declined due to 'personal modesty,' appearing briefly instead as an unnamed photographer. Initially dissatisfied with the script, Marshall was persuaded by director Terence Young—who had worked with her on the poorly received costume biopic The Bad Lord Byron (1949)—to soften some of her dialogue with humor. The bedroom scene with Sean Connery took three days to film because Marshall found it difficult to spit in her co-star's face after her character was handed over to the police superintendent. Miss Taro remains one of the most iconic Bond villainesses.
Marshall's final significant roles were as an Italian countess in Those Magnificent Men in Their Flying Machines or How I Flew from London to Paris in 25 Hours 11 Minutes (1965) and as a secretary battling alien invaders alongside Charles Hawtrey—oddly cast as an accountant—in the lackluster sci-fi film The Terrornauts (1967). Afterward, she retired from acting and embraced domestic life with her third husband, writer/producer Ivan Foxwell.
