Oddjob

Verified Timeline

Lore & Background

In the 1959 novel Goldfinger, Oddjob's real name is unknown. Auric Goldfinger names him to describe his duties to his employer. A Korean, like all of Goldfinger's staff, he is extremely powerful, as shown in one sequence where he breaks the thick oak railing of a staircase with knife-hand strikes and shatters a mantel with his foot. Oddjob is described as being a 'squat' man with 'arms like thighs', black teeth, and a 'sickly zoo-smell'. He is over six feet tall. His signature weapon is a razor-edged bowler hat, which he wears at all times and can throw with deadly accuracy. He is also a skilled archer. Due to a cleft palate, he has a speech defect that renders his speech unintelligible to everyone except Goldfinger. He is killed when Bond uses a knife to shatter the window next to his seat on an aircraft, which depressurizes the plane and blows Oddjob out of the window.

In Their Own Story

At the beginning of the 1964 film Goldfinger, Oddjob is seen only as a silhouette against a wall as he knocks James Bond unconscious at the Fontainebleau Hotel, after which he or Goldfinger kills Bond girl Jill Masterson through 'skin suffocation' by painting her entire body with gold paint. When Bond meets Auric Goldfinger for a round of golf, Oddjob is seen in full for the first time. Goldfinger describes him as 'an admirable manservant but mute'. He speaks only four times in the film. Oddjob acts as Goldfinger's personal chauffeur, bodyguard, and golf caddy. He wears a bowler hat with a sharpened steel rim, using it as a lethal throwing weapon. It is powerful and capable of cutting through steel and decapitating a stone statue. He uses it to kill Tilly Masterson by breaking her neck. Physically, Oddjob is extremely strong and resilient: he crushes a golf ball with one hand, and during the climactic fight scene with Bond, he is struck in the chest by a thrown gold bar and in the head with a wooden object used as a club. He barely flinches after both these attacks. After being locked in the vault with Goldfinger's henchman Kisch, Oddjob kills Kisch to prevent him from disarming the bomb before engaging Bond. Oddjob is electrocuted and dies.

Reader's Guide

Oddjob appears in the James Bond video games GoldenEye 007 (1997) and James Bond 007: Nightfire (2002) as a playable character for use in multiplayer modes. In Nightfire, he can use his hat as a throwing weapon that returns after 30 seconds. Oddjob is also a playable multiplayer character in the 2010 remake game GoldenEye 007 and appeared in the 2012 video game 007 Legends.

Did You Know?

• Oddjob's signature weapon is a razor-edged bowler hat, which he can throw with deadly accuracy.
• In the novel, Oddjob is over six feet tall, not short as often depicted in adaptations.
• Oddjob speaks only four times in the 1964 film Goldfinger.
• The hat prop used in Goldfinger was made by British hat makers Lock & Co. and adapted by inserting a chakram into the brim.
• In the novel, Oddjob is killed when Bond shatters a window on an aircraft, depressurizing the plane and blowing Oddjob out.