Yutte Stensgaard | |
---|---|
Born | Jytte Stensgaard 14 May 1946 |
Occupation | Actress |
Years active | 1968-1972 |
Spouses | Tony Curtis (m. 1967;div. 1971)John Kerwin (m. 1974;div. 1982)Paul Walter (m. 2012) |
Yutte Stensgaard (born 14 May 1946) is a Danish actress born in Thisted, Jutland, Denmark, best known for her starring role in Hammer's Lust for a Vampire (1971).
Born Jytte Stensgaard, she moved to the United Kingdom to improve her English in 1963. She worked as an au pair, studied stenography and became a model for a time. Stensgaard began her acting career in the film La Ragazza con la pistola ( The Girl with the Pistol , 1968). She then played parts in diverse UK TV-series: The Saint (1968; episode: "The Desperate Diplomat"); Broaden Your Mind (1969); Doctor in the House (1969/70) - in which she played the recurring role of Helga, Dave Briddock's girlfriend; On the Buses (1970; episode: "The New Uniforms", as Ingrid, a Swedish tourist); Special Branch (1970; episode: "Miss International" as Nina Sareth); sci-fi comedy series The Adventures of Don Quick (1970; as Flosshilda); Jason King (1971; as Arlene in the episode "As Easy as A.B.C."); The Persuaders! (1971; playing Bibi, a Judo instructress who assists Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis) in the episode "The Morning After"); The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1972), and anthology series Dead of Night (1972; as Gertrude Wickett in the episode "Bedtime").
Her film parts include the Bulldog Drummond film Some Girls Do (1969) as Robot One; she played small parts in If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969), Scream and Scream Again (1970) and Doctor in Trouble (1970). She also appeared in the low-budget sci-fi sex comedy Zeta One (1969).
Stensgaard's most famous role is that of the vampire Carmilla/Mircalla in Hammer's Lust for a Vampire (1971). The film was the sequel to The Vampire Lovers (1970), which had starred Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla. The original film was an adaptation of Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. However, Lust for a Vampire shared little with the novel; it only used the vampire characters, and was thus a completely new story. In the film, the bisexual Carmilla infiltrates an all-girl boarding school while falling in love with a novelist.
Stensgaard auditioned for the part of the Doctor Who companion Jo Grant, alongside third Doctor Jon Pertwee in 1970. Towards the end of her career she appeared in pantomime and the stage-farce Boeing-Boeing (1971). She also appeared on TV as a hostess on the popular game show The Golden Shot hosted by Bob Monkhouse.
Stensgaard has married three times: first to art director Tony Curtis; second to John Kerwin. [1] She left acting in 1972, went to live in the US and had a son. She became a Christian and for years worked at a radio station selling air-time and refusing to discuss her acting career. She married Paul Walter in June 2012 in Oregon. [2] She was tracked down by a Danish horror fan, Nicolas Barbano, and eventually agreed to an interview (which appeared in Video Watchdog ). Soon after, she was guest of honour at a horror convention. [1]
Stensgaard's image continues to feature on the covers of numerous book and magazine publications; for instance, Marcus Hearn's book Hammer Glamour (2009), which contains a chapter on her.
Carmilla is an 1872 Gothic novella by Irish author Sheridan Le Fanu and one of the early works of vampire fiction, predating Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) by 25 years. First published as a serial in The Dark Blue (1871–72), the story is narrated by a young woman preyed upon by a female vampire named Carmilla, later revealed to be Countess Mircalla Karnstein. The character is a prototypical example of the lesbian vampire, expressing romantic desires toward the protagonist. The story is often anthologised, and has been adapted many times in film and other media.
Bernard Bresslaw was a British actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the Carry On film franchise. Bresslaw also worked on television and stage, performed recordings and wrote a series of poetry.
Hammer Film Productions Ltd. is a British film production company based in London. Founded in 1934, the company is best known for a series of Gothic horror and fantasy films made from the mid-1950s until the 1970s. Many of these involve classic horror characters such as Baron Victor Frankenstein, Count Dracula, and the Mummy, which Hammer reintroduced to audiences by filming them in vivid colour for the first time. Hammer also produced science fiction, thrillers, film noir and comedies, as well as, in later years, television series.
Dr Terrible's House of Horrible is a satirical British comedy horror anthology series created by Graham Duff, who co-wrote the series with Steve Coogan. BBC Two broadcast the series in 2001. The title parodies Amicus Productions' anthology film Dr Terror's House of Horrors (1965). Coogan presents each episode as Dr. Terrible, and plays various roles throughout.
Madeline Smith is an English actress. After working as a model in the late 1960s, she went on to appear in many television series and stage productions, plus comedy and horror films, in the 1970s and 1980s.
Ingrid Pitt was a Polish-British actress and writer, best known for her work in British horror cinema of the 1970s.
Vampire films have been a staple in world cinema since the era of silent films, so much so that the depiction of vampires in popular culture is strongly based upon their depiction in films throughout the years. The most popular cinematic adaptation of vampire fiction has been from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula, with over 170 versions to date. Running a distant second are adaptations of the 1872 novel Carmilla by Sheridan Le Fanu. By 2005, the Dracula character had been the subject of more films than any other fictional character except Sherlock Holmes.
Barbara Shelley was an English film and television actress. She appeared in more than a hundred films and television series. She was particularly known for her work in horror films, notably Village of the Damned; Dracula, Prince of Darkness; Rasputin, the Mad Monk and Quatermass and the Pit.
The Vampire Lovers is a 1970 British Gothic horror film directed by Roy Ward Baker and starring Ingrid Pitt, Peter Cushing, George Cole, Kate O'Mara, Madeline Smith, Dawn Addams, Douglas Wilmer and Jon Finch. It was produced by Hammer Film Productions. It is based on the 1872 Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla and is the first film in the Karnstein Trilogy, the other two films being Lust for a Vampire (1971) and Twins of Evil (1971). The three films were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian themes.
Lesbian vampirism is a trope in early gothic horror and 20th century exploitation film. The archetype of a lesbian vampire used the fantasy genre to circumvent the heavy censorship of lesbian characters in the realm of social realism.
The Karnstein Trilogy is a series of vampire films produced by Hammer Films. They were notable at the time for their daring lesbian storylines. All three films were scripted by Tudor Gates. All three feature vampires of the noble Karnstein family, and their seat Castle Karnstein near the town of Karnstein in Styria, Austria.
Pippa Steel was a British actress best known for her roles in two Hammer horror films: The Vampire Lovers (1970) and Lust for a Vampire (1971). Also one appearance in TV series Public Eye (1971)
Lust for a Vampire, also known as Love for a Vampire or To Love a Vampire, is a 1971 British Hammer Horror film directed by Jimmy Sangster, starring Ralph Bates, Barbara Jefford, Suzanna Leigh, Michael Johnson, and Yutte Stensgaard. It was given an R rating in the United States for some violence, gore, strong adult content and nudity. It is the second film in the Karnstein Trilogy, loosely based on the 1872 Sheridan Le Fanu novella Carmilla. It was preceded by The Vampire Lovers (1970) and followed by Twins of Evil (1971). The three films do not form a chronological development, but use the Karnstein family as the source of the vampiric threat and were somewhat daring for the time in explicitly depicting lesbian themes.
Luan Peters, also known as Karol Keyes, was an English actress and singer.
Twins of Evil is a 1971 British horror film directed by John Hough and starring Peter Cushing, with Damien Thomas and the real-life identical twins and former Playboy Playmates Mary and Madeleine Collinson.
Doctor in the House is a British television comedy series based on a set of books and a film of the same name by Richard Gordon about the misadventures of a group of medical students. It was produced by London Weekend Television from 1969 to 1970.
Judy Matheson is a British actress notable for her appearances in several horror films in the 1970s. She also appeared in many other films and television series.
Kirsten Lindholm is a former model and a film actress known for her roles in Hammer horror movies, in which she first appeared as Kirsten Betts. She is now a yoga instructor and performer currently living in New Zealand and is now known as Elandra Kirsten Meredith and by the Sikh religious name Vikram Kaur Khalsa.
Carmilla is a Canadian single-frame web series co-created by Jordan Hall, Steph Ouaknine, and Jay Bennett. The series stars Elise Bauman and Natasha Negovanlis, and is loosely based on the novella of the same name by Sheridan Le Fanu. The series premiered on the Vervegirl YouTube channel on August 19, 2014. U by Kotex is the executive producer of the web series. The series takes place at the fictional Silas University in Styria, Austria, and is told through vlogs recorded by Laura, a first-year student. When Laura begins investigating the disappearance of her roommate, she is assigned a new roommate named Carmilla.
The World of Hammer is a British television documentary series created and written by Robert Sidaway and Ashley Sidaway, and produced by Robert Sidaway.