Barbara Steele

Acting

Barbara Steele

Born 1937-12-29 · Birkenhead, Cheshire, England, UK

Barbara Steele (born 29 December 1937) is an English actress and producer, known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. She has been referred to as the "Queen of All Scream Queens" and "Britain's first lady of horror". She played the dual role of Asa and Katia Vajda in Mario Bava's landmark film Black Sunday (1960), and starred in The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962), The Long Hair of Death (1964), and Castle of Blood (1964). Additionally, Steele had supporting roles in Federico Fellini's 8½ (1963), David Cronenberg's Shivers (1975), Joe Dante's Piranha and Louis Malle's Pretty Baby (both 1978), and appeared on television in the 1991 TV series Dark Shadows. She won a Primetime Emmy Award for producing the American television miniseries War and Remembrance (1988–89). Steele appeared in several films in the 2010s, including a lead role in The Butterfly Room (2012) and supporting role in Ryan Gosling's Lost River (2014). Description above from the Wikipedia article Barbara Steele, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.

Acting credits

Pretty Baby poster
7.0

In 1917 New Orleans, a 12-year-old girl is raised in a brothel by her prostitute mother.

Pretty Baby

1978

8½ poster
8.1

Guido Anselmi, a film director, finds himself creatively barren at the peak of his career. Urged by his doctors to rest, Anselmi heads for a luxurious resort, but a sorry group gathers—his producer, staff, actors, wife, mistress, and relatives—each one begging him to get on with the show. In retreat from their dependency, he fantasizes about past women and dreams of his childhood.

1963

Piranha poster
5.9

When flesh-eating piranhas are accidentally released into a summer resort's rivers, the guests become their next meal.

Piranha

1978

Shivers poster
6.4

The residents of a suburban high-rise apartment building are infected by parasites that turn them into mindless nymphomaniac fiends.

Shivers

1975

Lost River poster
5.7

Billy, a single mother of two, is led into a macabre underworld while her teenage son, Bones, discovers a secret road leading to an underwater town. Both Billy and Bones must dive deep into the mystery if their family is to survive.

Lost River

2015

The Pit and the Pendulum poster
6.8

In the sixteenth century, Francis Barnard travels to Spain to clarify the strange circumstances of his sister's death after she had married the son of a cruel Spanish Inquisitor.

The Pit and the Pendulum

1961

Houseboat poster
6.4

An Italian socialite on the run signs on as housekeeper for a widower with three children.

Houseboat

1958

Caged Heat poster
5.2

A young woman is convicted on drug offenses and sent to a women's penitentiary run by a repressed and oppressive female warden. When the prison's sadistic doctor begins conducting illegal "therapeutic" experiments on the inmates, the ladies plot their revenge.

Caged Heat

1974

Black Sunday poster
7.4

A vengeful witch, Asa Vajda, and her fiendish servant, Igor Jauvitch, return from the grave and begin a bloody campaign to possess the body of the witch's beautiful look-alike descendant: Katia. Only a handsome doctor with the help of family members stand in her way.

Black Sunday

1960

Sapphire poster
7.0

Two Scotland Yard detectives investigate the murder of a young woman of mixed race who had been passing for white. As they interview a spate of suspects -- including the girl's white boyfriend and his disapproving parents -- the detectives wade through a stubbornly entrenched sludge of racism and bigotry.

Sapphire

1959

Minutes Past Midnight poster
4.8

As midnight falls, all manner of terror invades the Earth. Demons, cannibals, killers, ghosts and monsters swarm the world in these tales of the supernatural, the fantastic, and the just plain horrific. Featuring nine stories of horror.

Minutes Past Midnight

2016

Fellinopolis poster
6.2

Ferruccio Castronuovo was the only authorized eye, between 1976 and 1986, to film the brilliant Italian filmmaker Federico Fellini (1920-1993) in his personal and creative intimacy, to capture the gears of his great circus, his fantastic lies and his crazy inventions.

Fellinopolis

2021

The She Beast poster
5.0

A young woman is driving alongside a lake. She has an accident and the car plunges into the water. Her body is then possessed by the spirit of an 18th-century witch who was killed by local villagers, and is bent on avenging herself on them.

The She Beast

1966

For Love and Gold poster
7.7

A group of rogues steal a scroll granting its bearer the property of the land of Aurocastro in Apulia, a province in the south of Italy. They elect a shaggy knight, Brancaleone from Norcia, as their leader, and decide to get possession of this supposedly wealthy land. Many adventures will occurr during the journey.

For Love and Gold

1966

Honeymoon with a Stranger poster
7.0

While on honeymoon with her husband in Spain, a woman wakes up one morning to find he has disappeared. After reporting it to the police, a man shows up claiming to be her husband. But he's not the man she married and no one will believe her.

Honeymoon with a Stranger

1969

The 39 Steps poster
6.3

In London, a diplomat accidentally becomes involved in the death of a British agent who's after a spy ring that covets British military secrets.

The 39 Steps

1959

Les baisers poster
5.5

A portmanteau film in which the producer, instead of as usual using already well known directors with a commercial draw, allowed five new young directors to each have a crack at an episode about romance.

Les baisers

1964

Curse of the Crimson Altar poster
5.2

When his brother disappears, a man visits the remote country house where he was last seen. While the host seems outwardly friendly and his niece more demonstrably so, there's a feeling of menace in the air with the overhanging legend of Lavinia Morley, the Black Witch of Greymarsh.

Curse of the Crimson Altar

1968

The Butterfly Room poster
5.7

A reclusive and butterfly-obsessed elderly lady suffering from bipolar disorder develops a disturbing relationship with a mysterious but seemingly innocent youngster.

The Butterfly Room

2012

Nightmare Castle poster
5.3

A sadistic count tortures and murders his unfaithful wife and her lover, then removes their hearts from their bodies. Years later, the count remarries and the new wife experiences nightmares and hauntings.

Nightmare Castle

1965

Be Pretty and Shut Up! poster
6.2

The film is a series of interviews with various well-known film actresses, including Jenny Agutter, Maria Schneider, and Jane Fonda. The title, which is borrowed from a 1958 film with the same name by Marc Allegret, refers to the sense the actresses have of what is expected of them by the film industry.

Be Pretty and Shut Up!

1981

Young Törless poster
6.6

At an Austrian boys' boarding school in the early 1900s, shy, intelligent Törless observes the sadistic behavior of his fellow students, doing nothing to help a victimized classmate—until the torture goes too far. Adapted from Robert Musil's acclaimed novel, Young Törless launched the New German Cinema movement and garnered the 1966 Cannes Film Festival International Critics' Prize for first-time director Volker Schlöndorff.

Young Törless

1966

Once Upon a Tractor poster
6.0

Alan Bates and Diane Cilento play an odd couple fleeing across fictitious European countries with NYC and the UN as their destination. A short film directed by Leopoldo Torre Nilsson.

Once Upon a Tractor

1965

The Horrible Dr. Hichcock poster
5.9

In late 19th century London, a woman weds a necrophiliac doctor whose first wife died under mysterious circumstances - and who might be returning from the grave to torment her successor.

The Horrible Dr. Hichcock

1962