Horror Culture Fan: BARBARA STEELE

It might surprise the casual horror fan to find out that the First Lady of Italian gothic cinema, Barbara Steele, is in fact, not Italian. Born December 29^th, 1937, in Cheshire England, Barbara’s first inclination was toward art. She soon caught the acting bug and was contracted by The Rank Organization. Their hope was to groom her as the successor to Jean Simmons (who starred opposite of Kirk Douglas in Spartacus). However, Barbara’s unique looks, with her large eyes and dark hair, made her difficult to market for mainstream parts and her contract was eventually sold to 20^th Century Fox.

In an effort to improve her mainstream appeal, the studio dyed her hair blonde and cast her opposite of Elvis Presley in Flaming Star. However, Barbara had conflicts with the director and was soon replaced with Barbara Eden. She starred in an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents but then her career came to a halt with a writer’s strike in Hollywood. Rather than stick it out in the States, she went back to Europe and her career was changed forever.

Mario Bava cast her in the lead role in his gothic masterpiece The Mask of Satan (known in America as Black Sunday). Black Sunday cast Barbara (thankfully with her black hair again) in dual roles (something that would happen several more times in her career). She played both a vampiric witch and her more virtuous descendant. The film was incredibly influential, especially on Italian cinema, but also made waves across the world. It was considered violent for its day and was censored in both the UK and the United States for years.

Barbara’s beauty, which apparently wasn’t the right fit for the mainstream, was the perfect fit for the gothic genre. Her large eyes, raven hair, and seductive lips created an image that could be alternately tragic and cruel. But the success was not just based on her looks. Barbara had charisma and was versatile. This allowed her to play both antagonists and protagonists effectively in her films (sometimes both in the same movie).

She returned to America to play opposite of Vincent Price in the memorable Roger Corman film Pit and thePendulum. Her next horror role was in the Italian film, The Horrible Dr. Hichcock where she was the wife of a necrophiliac. She would appear in several non-horror films over the next few years (most notably a supporting role in Federico Fellini’s 8 ½ ) but always she returned to the Italian horror scene. The Ghost (1963) was an Italian remake of the French film Les Diaboliques. The Long Hair of Death (1964) was another gothic Italian film with Barbara playing multiple roles in a film about witchcraft and revenge. She played a ghost in the Italian movie Castle of Blood (1964) before playing dual roles again in the Italian supernatural thriller, Nightmare Castle (1965). That same year she played a conniving adulteress in a joint Italian-American film, Terror Creatures from Grave. She had a small but prominent role in The She Beast (1966). Reportedly she was paid $1,000 for a single day’s work, that just happened to be an 18 hour day! She would return to Italian cinema for one more outing, An Angel for Satan (1966) which again had her playing dual roles.

An Angel for Satan was her best performance since Black Sunday, playing a virtuous debutante and the lustful spirit that is possessing her. This was her last Italian gothic horror. I don’t know if this was a conscious decision on her part or just the way things played out, but it was the zenith of her career, at least as an actress. In 1968 she starred in the AIP film Curse of the Crimson Alter. She starred opposite of Christopher Lee and Boris Karloff. She played an ancient witch carrying out revenge on the descendants of her persecutors. Her blue-green skin and horns made her very memorable, but otherwise she was severely underutilized. It’s a shame because having Steele, Karloff and Lee on the screen at one time was a once in a lifetime opportunity.

The film must have put a bad taste in Barbara’s mouth because she swore off horror films for several years. In the 1970s she appeared in smaller roles in three different horror films from young but very promising directors. She played the warden in Jonathan Demme’s (Silence of the Lambs) women in prison film, Caged Heat (1974), starred in a supporting role in the 1975 film, Shivers by David Cronenberg (Scanners, The Fly) and was a government agent in the 1978 film Piranha, directed by Joe Dante (The Howling and Gremlins).

Through the next decade Barbara worked behind the camera. She was an associate producer for the television mini-series The Winds of War and the producer for the sequel War and Remebrance. Both were very successful and the latter earned her an Emmy. She teamed up with Dan Curtis (who had been involved with both of those mini-series) for a revival of Dark Shadows in 1991, this time, back in front of the camera. The show was initially a huge success but soon failed, partially due to episodes being pre-empted by news about the Gulf War, the war that Americans watched in real time on TV.

Barbara’s career in movies effectively ended for the next 20 years. In 2012 she again had the lead role in the thriller Butterfly Room and Ryan Gosling cast her in a supporting role in his 2014 directorial debut, Lost River.

Now in her 80s’, Barbara is still very energetic and is recognized by generations of horror fans as one of the masters of the genre. She is often viewed as the Queen of Scream Queens, but I don’t think that Scream Queen adequately describes her place in horror. Though the term is generically applied to any woman who makes a career in horror, most of the time the parts are as the hapless victim, or the “final girl” facing off against the film’s menace. Always they are known for their sexual attractiveness.

To be sure, Barbara played in sexy roles, but so did Bela Lugosi and Christopher Lee for that matter, and I think she belongs in the same discussion with those masters. Barbara wasn’t just eye candy while the horror took place elsewhere. Often, she WAS the horror. She played witches and ghosts and re-incarnated spirits and conniving murderers. She created beautiful tragic characters that could be loved and hated. Any discussion of the masters of the genre would include Lugosi and Lee, Cushing and Karloff, but Barbara Steele should be mentioned right alongside of them as a pioneer and an indispensable part of the legacy of horror.