You could be forgiven for never having heard of Ingrid Pitt, who’s passed away aged 73, but to fans of classic horror, there are few bigger vampish icons. A true cult figure, Pitt is most famed for a slew of roles for Hammer horror in the 1970s.
Before she ever became an actress, she’d already led quite a tumutuous life. Born Ingoushka Petrov in Poland 1937, as a young girl she and her family ended up in a Nazi concentration camp, but thankfully she survived. As an adult, she became a well respected actress in Germany as part of the Berliner Ensemble, a theatre group initially set up by Bertolt Brecht. However after her marriage to an American soldier broke down, she decided to give the movies a try, making her debut with a small part in Doctor Zhivago in 1965.
While she also appeared in A Funny Thing Happen On The Way To The Forum (although she was uncredited) and When Eagles Dare, she stumbled on a new niche career in 1970 when she played a dangerously seductive bloodsucker in Hammer’s The Vampire Lovers. She also appeared in Countess Dracula and The House That Dripped Blood for Hammer, and though they were her only roles for the studio, they made her a cult icon. She also scored a small part in The Wicker Man, numermous TV series and in recent years has cameoed in several small horror flicks.
Pitt was also very active on the festival and horror fan circuit, even writing occasional columns for websites such as Den Of Geek, which helped keep interest in her alive and cemented her reputation with Hammer lovers, who often referred to her as the ‘first lady of British horror’. She died after collapsing on the way to a birthday dinner. It’s believed her heart gave out due to a previously diagnosed underlying condition.
Ingrid Pitt – 21st November 1937-23 November 2010 – RIP