Born
in Poland in 1937, Pitt and her family were imprisoned in a
concentration camp after her father's refusal to work for the Nazi
regieme. She survived the camp and spent some time as a stage performer
in East Germany, before her outspokenness against the Communist
repression forced her to flee the city into the West. Her first film
work came in Spain, appearing first in the low budget horror picture
El Sonido prehistórico (1964) before getting very small roles in the Orson Welles production
Chimes at Midnight (1965) and David Lean's classic
Doctor Zhivago
(1965). With these successes she travelled to Hollywood, working as a
waitress between occasional television roles, including an epsiode in
the first season of
Ironside. After a lead performance in the bizarre
The Omegans
(1968) shot in the Phillipines, Pitt's first major film role
came as secret agent Heidi in the Alistair MacLean adventure
Where Eagles Dare
(1968) starring Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood, but instead of
staying in Hollywood she moved to London to raise her daughter where
she found that the British film industry was at a low ebb and there was
no work to be found.
After bumping into James Carreras, co-owner of the British
Hammer Films studio at a party, Pitt managed to secure the role of the vampire vixen Carmilla in
The Vampire Lovers
(1970). The film was the first of Hammer's female vampire productions,
an attempt to catch up with the increasing liberalisation in European
cinema at the time, and permitting a fair helping of blood and breasts
- amply provided by Ingrid Pitt. The film was a success, and a sequel
was soon comissioned entitled
Lust for a Vampire
(1971), but Pitt was told by her agent not to do a sequel because it
would lead to typecasting - a decision she would later rue - and
the Carmilla role was taken by Scandinavian beauty
Yutte Stensgaard. Instead Pitt went to work for Hammer's rivals Amicus on
their anthology horror picture
The House that Dripped Blood (1971) playing a horror movie actress alongside Jon Pertwee in the comic final story. She did shortly return to Hammer for
Countess Dracula (1971) with her only top billing in an adaptation of the real-life story of
Countess Bathory co-starring Nigel Green - unfortunately the eroticism and horror of Vampire Lovers
had been replaced by gratuitous nudity and an unexciting storyline, and
Hammer's demise over the next three years was inevitable. Pitt was
particularly incensed by the decision made to dub her distinctive voice
with a more neutral sounding tone.
After a lead role in Robert Hartford-Davis' Nobody Ordered Love
(1972), a poorly rated behind-the-scenes drama based on the British film
industry, now considered to be a lost film, Pitt gave one of her most
famous performances in the British cult classic The Wicker Man (1973). Starring Christopher Lee,
the film is one of the most effective horror films ever made, and
although Ingrid Pitt gets a quite short role,
she really helps to build the overwhelming atmosphere of secrecy and
dread that makes the film so impressive. After an appearance in Where the Action Is in 1975, an episode of the superb British television series Thriller
(1973/76), Pitt took some time out from filmmaking, concentrating on
her stage performances, and began work as a writer, publishing her
first book, a thriller entitled Cuckoo Run in 1980.Her return to the screen came with the highly rated BBC television film
Artemis 81 (1981) before appearing in the Lewis Collins SAS action movie
Who Dares Wins (1982), and later in
Wild Geese II (1985), followed by the appalling Clive Barker penned crime/horror film
Underworld (1985) - closer to home was the story of Second World War heroine Hannah Szenes in
Hanna's War
(1988). However she was never able to gain any major roles, and left
the profession again. In the 1990s she survived breast cancer, and
published her auto-biography in 1999. With the recent reappraisal of
the classic cult films on home video and DVD, Pitt was cast in the
British horror tribute
The Asylum (2000) and went on to appear in the Sci-Fi Original Movie
The Minatour (2006) - she has since gained roles in the Hammer Horror tribute
Sea of Dust (2007) and the upcoming
Edgar Allan Poe inspired
Tell-Tale Heart (2008).
