Paris Carver was the fictional wife of British media baron and criminal Elliot Carver. A Bond girl portrayed by American actress Teri Hatcher first appeared in the 1997 James Bond film, Tomorrow Never Dies and also appeared in Raymond Benson’s accompanying novelization and his 1999 video game adaptation, voiced by Ève Karpf.
Biography
Paris Carver (née McKenna) was a beautiful brunette once a James Bond lover. She grew up in New York and attended university to become a teacher before leaving to become a model. One night she met Bond at a high-profile cocktail party, and the two started a relationship. However, he left her behind after two months in (ironically) Paris because his job was too dangerous for a real relationship. Four years later, she met TV and news magnate Elliot Carver, and they married after three months. Carver was leading a conspiracy to concoct a war between England and China, a war that his news divisions would have exclusive coverage of, sending his ratings into the stratosphere. MI6 sent Bond to investigate, and he eventually crossed paths with Paris. M had instructed him to seduce her and learn some of Carver’s plans.
When he saw her again, her beauty was not lost on him, but she was not exactly pleased to see Bond and slapped him across the face when she turned to him, shocking the guests. They talk about 007’s job and ask if he “still sleeps with a gun under his pillow?.” When Bond came up in conversation with her husband, Paris lied, saying that he had dated her roommate and that she barely knew him. After Carver talked with her, he saw the security footage Henry Gupta showed him about her conversation with Bond.
Suspecting that the man she had married was up to something nefarious (and out of a need to be with Bond again), Paris went to him after her husband’s henchmen tried to kill him. At first, he wanted to send her away, but they were too strongly drawn to each other. They made love, and Bond confessed that he had left her because she had gotten too close. Paris gave Bond the information he needed but Carver, who had been spying on his wife, sent his personal assassin, Dr. Kaufman, to her room hours later to kill her. Kaufman was assigned to make the deaths look like a murder-suicide; Bond killed Paris and then himself, but Bond was able to turn the tables on Kaufman and kill him.
Paris’ murder ignited in Bond the desire for revenge, shaking his usual professional detachment and clouding his judgment. His eventual partnership with Chinese Intelligence agent Wai Lin brought him back to his senses and provided him with another lover. When Carver holds the two at his headquarters in Saigon, Carver reminds Bond of her death and indicates he deems it Bond’s fault.
Bond eventually avenged Paris by killing Carver with a powerful sea drill which tore him to shreds.
Behind the scenes
Teri Hatcher was three months pregnant when the shooting started, although her publicist stated the pregnancy did not affect the production schedule. Hatcher later regretted playing Paris Carver, saying, “It’s such an artificial kind of character to be playing that you don’t get any special satisfaction from it.” Actress Sela Ward had auditioned for the role but lost out, reportedly being told the producers wanted her but ten years younger. Hatcher, at 32, was seven years Ward’s junior and was playing Lois Lane on the television show Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman, for which she had been voted the “Sexiest Woman on Television” by readers of TV Guide the previous year. According to Pierce Brosnan, Monica Bellucci also screen-tested for the role, but as Brosnan remarked, “the fools said no.” Daphne Deckers, who portrays the PR Lady, also confirms that she saw Bellucci the same day she herself auditioned. Bellucci would later play a role in the 24th Bond film Spectre.
