In two months, Ursula Andress will turn 90 years old. A birthday that is expected to be bittersweet since the first Bond girl in history alongside Sean Connery in Dr. No (1962) filed a lawsuit last September in the Swiss canton of Vaduz against her former manager and banker, Éric Freymond.
La Tribune de Genève reported on Wednesday that the Swiss diva lost 18 million francs (19 million euros) as the manager invested them in dubious investments for his own benefit without her consent. Apparently, Freymond had immense debts that he tried to settle with a large part of Andress's fortune.
It is suspected that the financial advisor purchased artworks belonging to his wife, invested in stocks of questionable or practically worthless value, and a significant portion of the cash has disappeared. On September 4, 2025, a criminal proceeding was initiated at the Prosecutor's Office of the canton of Vaud (Switzerland) following a complaint for "possible breach of trust, falsification of documents, and money laundering."
Without Ursula Andress requesting it, it is said that the notary of Vaud used her money to acquire, at least on paper, artworks belonging to Eric Freymond's wife, presumably to free up liquidity for the asset manager. People close to him said he had been under financial pressure, partly related to his legal problems.
In the spring of 2024, it is said that a large part of the Bernese actress's assets were transferred by the private bank Lombard Odier to an account of the Association of Notaries of Vaud (Association des Notaires Vaudois (ANV) at Saanenbank in Gstaad following Freymond's instructions.
Charles-Louis Notter, the lawyer for the Swiss diva, issued a statement on behalf of his client: "Mrs. Ursula Andress wishes to express her deep despair at the actions to which she was subjected. For years, she placed all her trust in Mr. Eric Freymond, convinced that she had a close friend and a loyal and competent professional by her side. This carefully cultivated trust was abused by a system of deception of extraordinary proportions and complexity, involving numerous actors and structures, causing her considerable harm.
Unfortunately, Eric Freymond committed suicide several weeks after being questioned in July of last year as a suspect in another case of misappropriation of assets of Nicolas Puech, a member of the family that founded Hermès who inherited 12 billion euros in shares. The money is still missing, but no charges were filed against the manager.
Ursula Andress has been one of the great erotic icons of cinema thanks to her emergence from the sea in the white bikini from the Bond film. The piece was auctioned at Christie's in 2001 for 48,000 euros. At that time, she was married to director John Derek, from whom she divorced four years later after having a romance with actor Ron Ely. Derek later married Linda Evans (83) and Bo Derek (69).
Throughout her life, the actress has had romances with some of the most important names in the industry such as James Dean, Marlon Brando, Elvis Presley -with whom she starred in Fun in Acapulco (1963)-, Jean-Paul Belmondo, or Fabio Testi (84), but only one made her a mother. It was with Harry Hamlin (74), star of the series L.A. Law, with whom she had her son Dimitri, a handsome man who lives in the heart of the film industry and whose private life is virtually unknown.