Career
Smith's first screen role was a small part in the film Escalation (1968), followed by a role in The Mini-Affair (1967), although the latter was released first. Smith first worked for Hammer Film Productions in Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970), billed as Maddy Smith and playing an East End prostitute. Among her other film appearances, she played opposite Ava Gardner in Tam Lin, Peter Cushing in The Vampire Lovers and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell, Diana Dors in The Amazing Mr Blunden, Frankie Howerd in Up Pompeii and Up the Front, and Vincent Price in Theatre of Blood. In 1972, Smith appeared in Carry On Matron in a scene alongside Hattie Jacques, Barbara Windsor, and Joan Sims.
In 1973, she played the Bond girl Miss Caruso in the post-opening titles sequence of Live and Let Die, the first James Bond film starring Roger Moore. Smith's role is therefore significant as Miss Caruso is the first Bond girl of the Roger Moore era. Smith and Moore take part in a scene in which he unzips her dress with a magnetic wristwatch. She was recommended for the role by Moore himself, having previously appeared with him in an episode of the television series The Persuaders!.
Smith's numerous stage credits include working with US director Charles Marowitz on Blue Comedy (Yvonne Arnaud Theatre, Guildford) and The Snob (at Marowitz's Tottenham Court Road venue the Open Space). She also acted opposite Alec Guinness in the original West End production of Alan Bennett's Habeas Corpus (playing Felicity Rumpers), supported Frankie Howerd again in the Volpone adaptation The Fly and the Fox (Churchill Theatre, Bromley), played Elma in a Cambridge Theatre Company revival of Frederick Lonsdale's Canaries Sometimes Sing, and spent two years playing the female lead in Agatha Christie's The Mousetrap at the St Martin's Theatre.
Her television credits include Doctor at Large (1971), The Two Ronnies (appearing in the serial Hampton Wick, 1971), Clochemerle (1972), His and Hers (1970) with Tim Brooke-Taylor, Casanova '73 (1973) with Leslie Phillips, Steptoe and Son (1974), The Howerd Confessions (1976), Why Didn't They Ask Evans? (1980), and The Steam Video Company (1984). She also featured in two episodes of All Creatures Great and Small, as two different characters (as Angela Farmer in "Pride of Possession" (1978) and as Anne Grantley in the 1983 Christmas special). She was a member of the regular cast of the BBC2 series The End of the Pier Show (1974) and In the Looking Glass (1978) alongside satirists John Wells and John Fortune and composer Carl Davis. Smith also starred in The Passionate Pilgrim (1984), which was the final screen appearance of Eric Morecambe.
After the birth of her daughter in 1984, Smith gradually wound down her career to give her time to raise her. In 2009, Smith was interviewed in, and was the cover star of, the coffee-table book Hammer Glamour. She returned to acting in 2011 with an appearance in an episode of Doctors. She then followed this with a role in a docu-drama marking the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic before starring in the miniseries Dancing on the Edge (2013) and appearing in an episode of Not Going Out in 2014. In 2015, she appeared as a contestant on the red team in the BBC antiques gameshow Bargain Hunt. In December 2018, she appeared in episode 4 of the Christmas series of Celebrity Mastermind with the history of Kew Gardens as her specialist subject.
In 2026, Philip Bujak and Smith co-authored her memoirs, titled Madeline Smith, Bond Girl.
