Tony Earnshaw: Ingrid Pitt - Hammer's queen of screams and sex appeal lived life to the full

It was impossible to dislike Ingrid Pitt, the self-styled Queen of Horror who has died aged 73.

She was outspoken, mischievous and possessed of an unapologetic candour that caught out many who came across her. And she pulled no punches when it came to doling out super-sharp barbs to those who had wronged her.

She was a guest of Leeds International Film Festival in 1995. The then director Liz Rymer wanted someone to host a Q&A and I volunteered, happy to lavish attention on a popular and still beautiful actress whose enduring reputation had been built on a half dozen cult movies during the late 60s and early 70s. Standing in the shadows of Hyde Park Picture House with Pitt's husband, former racing driver Tony Rudlin, I scanned through a list of questions. Rudlin asked to take a peek and shook his head. "Just wing it," he said. "Otherwise you'll scare her off."

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Ingrid, it turned out, was immensely nervous. She hovered off stage as I introduced her and sitting down, she yanked my chair closer to hers. "Why are you sitting so far away?" she asked. Cosily intimate, we began to talk.

She may have had butterflies but the adoring crowd was soon eating from her hands. She related a string of adventures – practising karate with Elvis Presley, playing poker with John Wayne, making Where Eagles Dare with Clint Eastwood and Richard Burton who both admitted they had a wager on which one would bed her first. But it was the horror movies that made her name, and she was delighted to remember them. From The House That Dripped Blood to The Wicker Man, Ingrid Pitt brought glamour, danger and unadulterated sex appeal to gloomy Victorian gothic.

She was the bosomy poster girl for Hammer Films, whose seemingly statuesque size and unadorned attributes made her the au naturelle successor to Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee. And unlike her male co-stars, she was perfectly happy to wear fangs and very little else. Overnight she became a sensation.

Sadly her reign was brief. The fire was going out of the British film industry and her stardom was as short-lived as Hammer's fleeting flirtation with voracious lesbian vampires. She was an enigmatic presence in Robin Hardy's unique The Wicker Man, but after that her film career waned. Her appeal never did. That night in Leeds was unforgettable for so many reasons, but mainly because Ingrid loved to be loved.

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I met her again when she released her autobiography, Life's a Scream. Only then did I begin to appreciate how the horrors of her movie life paled into insignificance in comparison with real life – such as spending several of her childhood years in a Nazi concentration camp. But she never complained. The title of the book said it all. She lived life to the full and enjoyed every minute. That's what I'll remember – that and a cheeky giggle.

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