This saddens me greatly as Ingrid Pitt was a favorite of mine during my childhood.
I went to an all boy high school and occasionally we were treated to a film. Vampire Lovers was shown, much to the delight of most of the students. The memory of that film has always stayed with me and I became an Ingrid Pitt fan.
And though The Wicker Man is one of my all time favorite films my only misgiving about the film is that Ingrid Pitt didn't have a more substantial role.
Ingrid Pitt was one of the greats. RIP.
Edited By Precious Doll on 1290665978
R.I.P. Ingrid Pitt
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Ingrid Pitt obituary - The Guardian
Actor who gained a cult following playing lusty vampires in Hammer horror films.
In the late 1960s, when audiences were
increasingly able to tolerate and even demand
more graphic violence and sexuality from
mainstream Hollywood films, the British company
Hammer Film Productions, known as the "House of
Hotrror decided to compete by playing up the erotic and
gory content of their baroque films. During the
scream factory's last gasp period, the erupting
female sexuality of young, curvaceous victims of
predatory males was common. The voluptuous Ingrid
Pitt, who has died aged 73, was fortunate enough
to be cast as a perpetrator rather than a victim.
Pitt's reputation, which has been somewhat
inflated by horror-movie freaks and camp
followers, is largely based on two Hammer movies,
The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Countess Dracula
(1971). She was able to imbue these vampire
characters with every possible ounce of human
feeling, as well as displaying a lustiness rare
in British pictures, and a revealing cleavage. To
paraphrase Howard Hughes's words about Jane
Russell: "There were always two good reasons to
see a film starring Ingrid Pitt."
She was born Ingoushka Petrov in Poland to a
Jewish mother and a German father who was a
scientist and refused to work on the Nazis'
programme to develop rockets. Pitt was five when
she and her mother were sent to the Stutthof
concentration camp, where they remained for three
years. "I think I first knew I wanted to act in
the camp," she said. "I used to lie on the straw
and try and believe I was somewhere else."
When they were taken into a forest to be shot,
Pitt and her mother managed to escape and were
rescued by partisans. They spent the last year of
the war living rough with the partisans, before
making their way to Berlin. "I was born into the
biggest horror show of the century, the
brutalities of the Nazi regime," said Pitt. "I
think it's very amazing that I do horror films
when I had this awful childhood. But maybe that's why I'm good at it."
After a brief spell as a medical student, Pitt
became a member of Bertolt Brecht's Berliner
Ensemble theatre company. When she got into
trouble for criticising the communist
authorities, she made her escape to the west,
aided by a US marine officer, Roland Pitt, whom
she soon married. After living for a period on a
military base in Colorado, she got a divorce and
returned to Europe with her daughter, Steffanie.
During a few years in Spain, she appeared
uncredited in several Spanish films and got work
as an extra on David Lean's Doctor Zhivago and
Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (both in 1965).
She was eventually given a leading role in the
wretched low-budget sci-fi film The Omegans
(1968), shot in the Philippines and directed by W
Lee Wilder, the brother of Billy Wilder.
In the same year, Pitt landed the part of a
German double agent posing as a cafe waitress in
the popular second world war yarn, Where Eagles
Dare. ("And who might you be, my pretty alpine
rose?", asks Richard Burton, dressed in a Nazi
uniform in the film.) "I had to say I was German
to get the role and I didn't like that," Pitt
said. Most of the film's interiors were shot at
the MGM-British studios in Borehamwood,
Hertfordshire, and it was then that Pitt began
her love affair with England. She later married
the former British racing driver Tony Rudlin,
with whom she settled in London. It was "the
longest Pitt-stop of his career", she once quipped.
Pitt's breakthrough came when James Carreras, one
of the founders of Hammer, cast her in The
Vampire Lovers, based on Joseph Sheridan Le
Fanu's novella Carmilla. Pitt, wearing low-cut,
transparent gowns, played Mircalla Karnstein, a
200-year-old lesbian vampire who seduces her
female victims before sucking their blood.
This was followed by the title role of Countess
Dracula, loosely based on the life of Countess
Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian who was accused of
murdering female victims. Pitt's character
remains youthful by bathing in the blood of
virgins, and Pitt provides a certain poignancy as
the ugly, old crone grasping at beauty. One
minute she is hideous but then, after her
bloodbath, she looks like a Playboy centrefold.
The House That Dripped Blood (1971), produced by
Hammer's rival studio, Amicus, was a portmanteau
horror movie. Pitt appeared in the amusing final
episode, The Cloak, as a film star in tacky
horror movies who really becomes a vampire.
Pitt's status was increased further by her part
in The Wicker Man (1973), a horror-thriller
always labelled a "cult classic". She had a
smallish role, as the relatively normal character
of a librarian on the remote island of
Summerisle, although time was found for a shot of her lying naked in a bath.
After The Wicker Man, most of her best work was
done for television. She appeared in Smiley's
People (1982), and as Dr Solow in three episodes
of Doctor Who in 1984. Pitt later wrote several
books, including her autobiography, Life's a
Scream (1999), and The Ingrid Pitt Book of
Murder, Torture and Depravity (2000), and often
attended horror conventions and fan gatherings.
She is survived by Tony, Steffanie and a granddaughter, Sofia.
• Ingrid Pitt (Ingoushka Petrov), actor, born 21
November 1937; died 23 November 2010
Actor who gained a cult following playing lusty vampires in Hammer horror films.
In the late 1960s, when audiences were
increasingly able to tolerate and even demand
more graphic violence and sexuality from
mainstream Hollywood films, the British company
Hammer Film Productions, known as the "House of
Hotrror decided to compete by playing up the erotic and
gory content of their baroque films. During the
scream factory's last gasp period, the erupting
female sexuality of young, curvaceous victims of
predatory males was common. The voluptuous Ingrid
Pitt, who has died aged 73, was fortunate enough
to be cast as a perpetrator rather than a victim.
Pitt's reputation, which has been somewhat
inflated by horror-movie freaks and camp
followers, is largely based on two Hammer movies,
The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Countess Dracula
(1971). She was able to imbue these vampire
characters with every possible ounce of human
feeling, as well as displaying a lustiness rare
in British pictures, and a revealing cleavage. To
paraphrase Howard Hughes's words about Jane
Russell: "There were always two good reasons to
see a film starring Ingrid Pitt."
She was born Ingoushka Petrov in Poland to a
Jewish mother and a German father who was a
scientist and refused to work on the Nazis'
programme to develop rockets. Pitt was five when
she and her mother were sent to the Stutthof
concentration camp, where they remained for three
years. "I think I first knew I wanted to act in
the camp," she said. "I used to lie on the straw
and try and believe I was somewhere else."
When they were taken into a forest to be shot,
Pitt and her mother managed to escape and were
rescued by partisans. They spent the last year of
the war living rough with the partisans, before
making their way to Berlin. "I was born into the
biggest horror show of the century, the
brutalities of the Nazi regime," said Pitt. "I
think it's very amazing that I do horror films
when I had this awful childhood. But maybe that's why I'm good at it."
After a brief spell as a medical student, Pitt
became a member of Bertolt Brecht's Berliner
Ensemble theatre company. When she got into
trouble for criticising the communist
authorities, she made her escape to the west,
aided by a US marine officer, Roland Pitt, whom
she soon married. After living for a period on a
military base in Colorado, she got a divorce and
returned to Europe with her daughter, Steffanie.
During a few years in Spain, she appeared
uncredited in several Spanish films and got work
as an extra on David Lean's Doctor Zhivago and
Orson Welles's Chimes at Midnight (both in 1965).
She was eventually given a leading role in the
wretched low-budget sci-fi film The Omegans
(1968), shot in the Philippines and directed by W
Lee Wilder, the brother of Billy Wilder.
In the same year, Pitt landed the part of a
German double agent posing as a cafe waitress in
the popular second world war yarn, Where Eagles
Dare. ("And who might you be, my pretty alpine
rose?", asks Richard Burton, dressed in a Nazi
uniform in the film.) "I had to say I was German
to get the role and I didn't like that," Pitt
said. Most of the film's interiors were shot at
the MGM-British studios in Borehamwood,
Hertfordshire, and it was then that Pitt began
her love affair with England. She later married
the former British racing driver Tony Rudlin,
with whom she settled in London. It was "the
longest Pitt-stop of his career", she once quipped.
Pitt's breakthrough came when James Carreras, one
of the founders of Hammer, cast her in The
Vampire Lovers, based on Joseph Sheridan Le
Fanu's novella Carmilla. Pitt, wearing low-cut,
transparent gowns, played Mircalla Karnstein, a
200-year-old lesbian vampire who seduces her
female victims before sucking their blood.
This was followed by the title role of Countess
Dracula, loosely based on the life of Countess
Elizabeth Báthory, a Hungarian who was accused of
murdering female victims. Pitt's character
remains youthful by bathing in the blood of
virgins, and Pitt provides a certain poignancy as
the ugly, old crone grasping at beauty. One
minute she is hideous but then, after her
bloodbath, she looks like a Playboy centrefold.
The House That Dripped Blood (1971), produced by
Hammer's rival studio, Amicus, was a portmanteau
horror movie. Pitt appeared in the amusing final
episode, The Cloak, as a film star in tacky
horror movies who really becomes a vampire.
Pitt's status was increased further by her part
in The Wicker Man (1973), a horror-thriller
always labelled a "cult classic". She had a
smallish role, as the relatively normal character
of a librarian on the remote island of
Summerisle, although time was found for a shot of her lying naked in a bath.
After The Wicker Man, most of her best work was
done for television. She appeared in Smiley's
People (1982), and as Dr Solow in three episodes
of Doctor Who in 1984. Pitt later wrote several
books, including her autobiography, Life's a
Scream (1999), and The Ingrid Pitt Book of
Murder, Torture and Depravity (2000), and often
attended horror conventions and fan gatherings.
She is survived by Tony, Steffanie and a granddaughter, Sofia.
• Ingrid Pitt (Ingoushka Petrov), actor, born 21
November 1937; died 23 November 2010
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Ingrid Pitt, queen of Hammer horror films, dies (Reuters)
Source: Reuters Wed Nov 24, 2010, 7:17 am EST
LONDON (Reuters) - Ingrid Pitt, seductive queen of the Hammer horror films who survived a Nazi concentration camp as a girl, has died aged 73, a spokesman for her agent said on Wednesday.
The actress started her screen career in the mid-1960s with roles in Spanish films and minor, uncredited parts in "Doctor Zhivago" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."
She appeared in the 1968 classic "Where Eagles Dare" alongside Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, and five years later in the mystery drama "The Wicker Man."
But it was for her roles in erotic horror films "The Vampire Lovers" (1970) and "Countess Dracula" (1971) that she was best known in Britain.
"Underrated as both an actress and a writer, Pitt was a warm but stubbornly enigmatic figure," said Marcus Hearn, a historian of Hammer horror movies and a friend of the actress.
Pitt was also a writer, producing two novels set during the Peron era in Argentina and several horror-related works of fiction.
She was born in Poland in 1937 to a mother of Jewish descent, and was interned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two at the age of five -- an experience she recounted in her autobiography "Life's a Scream."
She told an interviewer in 2006 that she did not particularly enjoy watching horror movies.
"I was in a concentration camp as a child and I don't want to see horror," Pitt said. "I think it's very amazing that I do horror films when I had this awful childhood. But maybe that's why I'm good at it."
Her autobiography also describes Pitt's search for her father throughout the European Red Cross refugee camps and her escape from East Berlin, one step ahead of the police.
"I always had a big mouth and used to go on about the political schooling interrupting my quest for thespian glory," she wrote. "I used to think like that. Not good in a police state."
Pitt collapsed recently and died in London on Tuesday, shortly after her 73rd birthday.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)
Source: Reuters Wed Nov 24, 2010, 7:17 am EST
LONDON (Reuters) - Ingrid Pitt, seductive queen of the Hammer horror films who survived a Nazi concentration camp as a girl, has died aged 73, a spokesman for her agent said on Wednesday.
The actress started her screen career in the mid-1960s with roles in Spanish films and minor, uncredited parts in "Doctor Zhivago" and "A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum."
She appeared in the 1968 classic "Where Eagles Dare" alongside Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, and five years later in the mystery drama "The Wicker Man."
But it was for her roles in erotic horror films "The Vampire Lovers" (1970) and "Countess Dracula" (1971) that she was best known in Britain.
"Underrated as both an actress and a writer, Pitt was a warm but stubbornly enigmatic figure," said Marcus Hearn, a historian of Hammer horror movies and a friend of the actress.
Pitt was also a writer, producing two novels set during the Peron era in Argentina and several horror-related works of fiction.
She was born in Poland in 1937 to a mother of Jewish descent, and was interned in a Nazi concentration camp during World War Two at the age of five -- an experience she recounted in her autobiography "Life's a Scream."
She told an interviewer in 2006 that she did not particularly enjoy watching horror movies.
"I was in a concentration camp as a child and I don't want to see horror," Pitt said. "I think it's very amazing that I do horror films when I had this awful childhood. But maybe that's why I'm good at it."
Her autobiography also describes Pitt's search for her father throughout the European Red Cross refugee camps and her escape from East Berlin, one step ahead of the police.
"I always had a big mouth and used to go on about the political schooling interrupting my quest for thespian glory," she wrote. "I used to think like that. Not good in a police state."
Pitt collapsed recently and died in London on Tuesday, shortly after her 73rd birthday.
(Reporting by Mike Collett-White, editing by Paul Casciato)