Barbara Steele (born 29 December 1937) is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960), now hailed as a classic.Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962), The Ghost directed by Riccardo Freda, and Roger Corman's 1961 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Pit and the Pendulum, among others.She guest starred on various British television shows including the spy drama, Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan. She made her American television debut in 1960 as Dolores in the "Daughter of Illusion" episode of the ABC series, Adventures in Paradise, starring Gardner McKay. In 1961, she appeared as Phyllis in the "Beta Delta Gamma" episode of CBS's Alfred Hitchcock Presents.Steele was cast as Julia Hoffman in the 1991 remake of the 1960s ABC television series, Dark Shadows. In 2010, she was a guest star in the Dark Shadows audio drama, The Night Whispers.In 2010, actor-writer Mark Gatiss interviewed Steele about her role in Black Sunday (1960) for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror.
I love the small problems of life. It's this that is important. I would love to make a beautiful love film. It's been a long time since I've seen a beautiful love film. Myself, I adore love. Perhaps the French directors are too preoccupied with these problems. It's not like that here [in Italy] or in the USA. In the United States, I had a contract with Fox. It was a very unhappy period in my life. Finally, I never made a film for them. I was paid. I was bored and suffering a lot not being able to work. The only film I shot in America was Pit and the Pendulum (1961) for AIP. My contract with Fox was dreadful. Rank, with whom I was under contract, didn't know very well how to use me. Then, they sold my contract to Fox. In the USA, they wanted to change me completely. I was too big. I should be a brunette or a blonde. And, then, life is so artificial. I arrived without much but left with nothing. I was completely demoralized.
2
[on Black Sunday (1960)] In ten days, Mario Bava had not been able to work the lighting as he had planned it. As an old chief camera operator, he attached much importance to the image. I find that, in our time, the cinema is less and less a visual art. It was much more beautiful in the 1930s, for example. One finds less and less imagination concerning the visual planning. Love scenes are filmed in a mechanical and cold fashion. One doesn't embrace this way in life. It would be necessary, on the contrary, to suggest this by imagery - a detail, the curve of a shoulder... I don't know... I never go to see supernatural films. Not my own. There is, perhaps, some good in them.
3
It's easy to know my mood. I'm thin when I'm happy, but, during all the seasons, my eyes are green, my hands too big and my legs too long.
4
I was born in Ireland. It's a humid and green country. Not at all like Rome. I was born on the same day as Fellini... but not the same year. I'm, therefore, a Capricorn.
5
[From Calvin Thomas Beck's book "Scream Queens"] I hate graves and all those things. I began with too many horror films. This is dangerous. Horror films are made for directors, not for actors. One never thinks of the character of the people or their psychology. One always follows the same dramatic pattern. That's what I object to about nearly all these films - they always exploit the same fears. (...) I love witchcraft, the supernatural. All that's intuitive. I don't like people who are too rational.
6
[on her career in the documentary A-Z of Horror (1997)] I usually played these roles where I represented the dark side. I was always a predatory bitch goddess in all of these movies, and with all kinds of unspeakable elements. Then what is life without a dark side? The driving force of drama is the dark side. These women that I played usually suffered for it, and I guess men like that.
7
You can't live off being a cult.
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Fact
1
Best known by the public for her role as the evil yet sexy witch Princess Asa Vajda in Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960).
The role of Alice LeBlanc in They Shoot Horses, Don't They? (1969) was written by James Poe--her husband--specifically for her, but it turned out she was not able to do it and it was given to Susannah York instead.
4
She was slightly injured by Vincent Price while filming her last scene from Pit and the Pendulum (1961) when he quite aggressively grabbed her by her throat - she shrugged it off because the scene came off so real.
5
She has one child, a son named Jonathan Jackson Poe who was born on August 11, 1970 in Los Angeles with her ex-husband, James Poe.
6
She was reportedly the last person to be signed as a contract player by the J. Arthur Rank Organization.
7
She was the original female lead to Elvis Presley in Flaming Star (1960). She walked off the picture after an argument with director Don Siegel.
$200,000
