M inspiration picks Bond girl over villain

DARTINGTON, England, July 11 (UPI) -- The former British official who inspired Judi Dench's portrayal of M in the James Bond films says she would rather be a Bond girl than a Bond villain.

Stella Rimington, 76, who was the first female head of security service MI5, was responding to a question from a literary festival audience member in Dartington, England, about which Bond villain she would most like to be, The Daily Telegraph reported Monday.

"I would rather not be a villain -- I would rather be Octopussy," Rimington said, referring to Maud Adams' character in the 1983 film of the same name.

Rimington retired from MI5 in 1996 and used her experience to become a novelist writing a series of spy thrillers starring heroine Liz Carlyle.

"I wanted to try to rescue spy stories from the idea of one man up against a baddie," she told the festival audience. "James Bond goes to see M and she shows him a very thin file with a photograph on the front and says, 'Off you go and kill that man'. In fact, it's not like that at all."