LONDON — Ingrid Pitt, who survived a Nazi concentration camp and dodged Communist police to become one of Britain’s best-known horror stars, died Tuesday, her daughter said. She was 73.
Known in Britain principally as the buxom bloodsucker in “Vampire Lovers” and “Countess Dracula,” Ingrid Pitt’s acting career very nearly wasn’t.
Born to a mother of Jewish descent, Pitt was interned in a Nazi concentration camp at age 5. She survived the war but was forced to flee Communist Berlin on the night of her planned stage debut, plunging into a river in a bid to escape East German authorities. In a twist that easily surpassed the drama of her films, she was rescued by a U.S. soldier who would become her husband.
Her movie career was jump-started by her role in the 1968 action-adventure movie “Where Eagles Dare.” The World War II drama would eventually lead to her being taken on by Britain’s Hammer Films — home to Christopher Lee’s “Dracula.” She would play alongside the horror legend in 1971’s “The House That Dripped Blood” and 1973’s “The Wicker Man.”
