Zena Marshall, who has died of cancer aged 83, was one of the very first Bond girls, establishing the template in Dr No (1962) for that sub-group who are enemy agents, but end up in bed with 007 anyway.

She played Miss Taro, a Chinese girl working for the British government in Jamaica, but also serving as an agent of the criminal organisation SPECTRE and the mysterious Dr No. Bond (Sean Connery) realises she is a traitor, but that does not stop him seducing her before handing her over to the police.

Ursula Andress is often cited as the first Bond girl. Technically it is Eunice Gayson, who plays Sylvia Trench, whom Bond meets at the casino. But Miss Taro is the first woman Bond seduces on a mission, before meeting Ursula Andress's character Honey Rider.

Zena Moyra Marshall was born in Nairobi on New Year's Day 1926. Her father died when she was young and her mother married a landowner in Leicestershire, where she spent her early years. Her mother's family were French and her dark beauty would later lend itself to a series of exotic screen characters.

Marshall trained at RADA, the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, and worked with ENSA, the Entertainments National Service Association, during the Second World War. She was courted by Prince Alexander of Yugoslavia, dined with President Peron and married the band leader Paul Adam in 1947, though the marriage was short-lived.

Her acting career began in theatre and she made her screen debut as a handmaiden in Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). Over the next two decades she appeared in a string of supporting roles in films and television series, including Danger Man (1961 and 1964) and Richard the Lionheart (1962).

The role of Miss Taro seemed nothing special at the time, but the success of Dr No exceeded everyone's expectations, and Miss Taro was to provide her with an almost iconic status in the Bond mythology.

A few years later, Marshall was caught up in a peculiar furore when pictures of her, in skimpy dressing gown and towelling robe, were included in a series of James Bond photo cards issued with bubblegum. The cards also included other early Bond girls in various states of undress.

One MP claimed they were "a disgusting and disgraceful corruption of young children". They were withdrawn and replaced with a set with more emphasis on guns and violence.

Marshall played an Italian countess in big-budget movie Those Magnificent Men in their Flying Machines (1965) and starred in sci-fi hokum The Terrornauts (1967), before retiring from films. After a second brief marriage, she married film producer Ivan Foxwell and the union lasted till his death in 2002. They had no children.