Featured Icon: Ingrid Pitt (1937-2010)

Ingrid Pitt (November 21, 1937 – November 23, 2010) was an actress best known for her work in horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.

Her work with Hammer Film Productions elevated her to cult figure status. She starred as "Carmilla/Mircalla" in The Vampire Lovers (1970), a film based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla, and played the title role in Countess Dracula (1971), a film based on the legends around Countess Elizabeth Báthory. Pitt also appeared in the Amicus horror anthology film The House That Dripped Blood (1971) and had a small part in the film The Wicker Man (1973).

In the mid-1970s, she appeared on the judging panel of the British ITV talent show New Faces.

During the 1980s, Pitt returned to roles in mainstream films and on television. Her role as Fraulein Baum in the 1981 BBC Playhouse Unity, who is denounced as a Jew by Unity Mitford (played by Lesley-Anne Down, who had played her daughter in Countess Dracula), was uncomfortably close to her real-life experiences. Her popularity with horror film buffs saw her in demand for guest appearances at horror conventions and film festivals. Other films Pitt has appeared in outside the horror genre are: Who Dares Wins, (aka The Final Option), Wild Geese II, and Hanna's War. Generally cast as a 'baddie', she usually manages to get killed horribly at the end of the final reel. "Being the anti-hero is great – they are always roles you can get your teeth into."

READ MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ingrid_Pitt