In the novel, Auric Goldfinger is a 42-year-old expatriate who emigrated at age 20 in 1937 from Riga, Latvia. He is 5 feet (152 cm) tall, has blue eyes, red hair, and has a passion for his tan. Goldfinger's name was borrowed from Ian Fleming's neighbour in his Hampstead home, architect Ern Goldfinger, and his character bears some resemblance.[4] Ern Goldfinger consulted his lawyers when the book was published, prompting Fleming to suggest renaming the character Goldprick , but Goldfinger eventually settled out of court in return for his legal costs, six copies of the novel, and an agreement that the character's first name 'Auric' would always be used. Goldfinger is typically a German-Jewish name, and the protagonists of the novel know this, but neither Bond nor Mr. Du Pont think Goldfinger is Jewish. Instead, Bond pegs the red-haired, blue-eyed man as a Balt. And, indeed, Goldfinger proves an expatriate Latvian.[5] Now a UK commonwealth citizen naturalised to Nassau, he has become the richest man in England, though his wealth is not in English banks and he hasn't paid taxes on it. Rather, it is spread as gold bullion in many countries. Goldfinger is the treasurer of SMERSH, Bond's nemesis. Goldfinger fancies himself an expert pistol shot who never misses, and always shoots his opponents through the right eye. He tells Bond he has done so with four Mafia heads at the end of the novel. Goldfinger is obsessed with gold, going so far as to have yellow-bound erotic photographs, and have his lovers painted head to toe in gold so that he can make love to gold. (He leaves an area near the spine unpainted, but painting this area also is what kills Jill Masterton, as in the film). He is also a jeweller, a metallurgist, and a smuggler. When Goldfinger first meets Bond in Miami, he claims that he is agoraphobic; a ploy to allow him to cheat a previous acquaintance of Bond's at a game of two-handed Canasta. Bond figures out how Goldfinger is managing this, and blackmails him by forcing him to admit his deception. This incident also establishes Goldfinger as boundlessly greedy - as whatever sums he can gain by this elaborate cheating are negligible compared with what he already has in his possession. Goldfinger is also an avid golfer, but is known at his club for being a smooth cheater there, also. When Bond contrives to play a match with Goldfinger, he again cheats the cheater by switching Goldfinger's Dunlop 1 golf ball with a Dunlop 7 he had found while playing. In both the novel and film, Goldfinger is aided in his crimes by his manservant, Oddjob, a mute, monstrously strong Korean who ruthlessly eliminates any threat to his employer's affairs. Goldfinger is the owner of Enterprises Auric A.G. in Switzerland, maker of metal furniture, which is purchased by many airlines including Air India. Twice a year, Goldfinger drives his vintage Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost car from England to Enterprises Auric. Bond learns that Goldfinger makes dead drops of gold bars for SMERSH along the way, and that his car's bodywork is 18 carat (75%), solid white gold under the ploy that the added weight is armour plating. Once at Enterprises Auric, his car is stripped down, melted and made into seating for an airline company that Enterprises Auric is heavily invested in. The plane(s) are then flown to India where the seats are melted down again into gold bars and sold for a much higher premium rate; 100 to 200 percent profit.Operation Grand SlamIn the novel, Goldfinger captures Bond and threatens to cut him in half with a high-power buzz saw. Bond is also tortured at the same time, as Oddjob works his pressure points. He offers to work for Goldfinger in exchange for his life, but Goldfinger initially refuses to spare his prisoner as Bond blacks out. He wakes to find that Goldfinger is going to take him up on his offer after all, however. Bond becomes Goldfinger's prisoner and secretary (the unlikelihood of which led to a recurrent joke in the spoof Austin Powers films). While working at this job he finds out about Operation Grand Slam. This is Goldfinger's codename for his scheme that involves knocking off the U.S. Bullion Depository at Fort Knox, Kentucky. Through the use of a nerve agent (GB, also known as Sarin), Goldfinger plans to poison the water supply at Fort Knox, killing everyone at the base. From there, Goldfinger would use an atomic bomb designed for a Corporal Intermediate Range Guided Missile that he had purchased for one million USD in Germany, to blow open Fort Knox's impregnable vault. With the help of American gangsters, Goldfinger would then remove roughly $15 billion in gold bullion by truck and train, and escape to the Soviet Union on a cargo boat. (After publication of the novel, the details of Operation Grand Slam were questioned, with critics noting it would have taken hours if not days to remove $15 billion from Fort Knox, during which the U.S. Army would inevitably intervene. The issue of getting every soldier on the base to drink the poisoned water without an alarm was also raised. A final problem that was the clean atomic bomb, tactical or not, in all likelihood would not only have annihilated the vault. Consequently, the film uses a different plan: The bomb is dirty, and the destruction and contamination of the gold, not its theft, is the objective, so that the value of Goldfinger's own gold would increase tenfold. The film points out logistical flaws in the novel's original plan during a confrontation between Goldfinger and Bond.) Bond foils Goldfinger's plan by getting word to Felix Leiter of the impending operation, by means of a message taped inside an airliner toilet. With the help of The Pentagon, Leiter is able to stop Goldfinger and foil the operation. Goldfinger escapes, however.ConclusionLater, Goldfinger and his henchman learn from SMERSH who Bond is, and determine to take him with them in defecting to the Soviet Union. They pose as doctors to incapacitate crew and passengers (including Bond) with drugged inoculations. Then they hijack the BOAC Boeing 377 Stratocruiser (service ceiling 32,000 ft), carrying Goldfinger's total savings of gold. The hijacked plane is headed for Soviet Union airspace. In the novel, Oddjob meets his end when he is sucked through an airliner window after Bond pierces it with a knife. Goldfinger then attacks Bond by kicking him. Bond and Goldfinger engage in a brief struggle, during which Bond is seized by a violent rage for the first time in his life, strangling Goldfinger to death with his bare hands. Bond then turns to the pilots and forces the airplane to turn back from its intended flightpath, and this causes it to ditch in the ocean after running out of fuel. The airplane sinks rapidly (presumably due to its payload of gold), with Bond and Goldfinger's pilot, Pussy Galore, as the only survivors.In the film, Goldfinger is a gold smuggler, accomplishing this feat by having a car built with gold body castings and transporting it via airplane. Once the car arrives at its destination, Goldfinger has the body-work re-smelted. However, this secret smuggling operation drew suspicion from Colonel Smithers of the Bank of England and it resulted in Bond being sent to investigate. Goldfinger is also an avid golfer who plays with a Slazenger 1 golf ball (changed from a Dunlop in the novel presumably for legal reasons). He is defeated, however, when he is tricked by Bond after attempting to cheat. Auric Goldfinger owns many properties throughout the world including Auric Enterprises, AG , which is the headquarters for most of his smuggling operations. Located in Switzerland, it is where Bond is nearly cut in half by an industrial laser when Goldfinger has him bound to a table.The film also contains what is considered one of the most famous exchanges between Bond and a villain:Bond: Do you expect me to talk? Goldfinger: No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die. Goldfinger also owns a stud-farm in Kentucky called Auric Stud .In the film, Felix Leiter says that Goldfinger is British, but he would appear to be German given Gert Fr Show less «