R.I.P. Ingrid Pitt - We will miss you, your evil vampiresses, and your wonderful legacy of female genre characters

Hammer horror actress Ingrid Pitt dies at the too-young aged of 73.

Ingrid Pitt was Countess Dracula in the British Hammer horror film of the same name. She collapsed a few days ago from heart failure and then passed away in a London hospital today.

Ingrid Pitt always reminded me of my mother - blond, European, with a thick accent, but lovely in a strong, Teutonic way that other actresses just couldn't live up to. He onscreen charisma made her perfect for playing powerful vampiric villainesses like Countess Dracula and Carmilla Karnstein.

Stephanie Blake, Ingrid Pitt's daughter, and Marcus Hearn, an official Hammer historian, had sweet things to say of Ingrid to the BBC News website. Blake says that her mother's death had come as a "huge surprise". "She could be incredibly generous, loving, and she'll be sorely missed". She added that she wanted her mother to be remembered as the Countess Dracula with the "wonderful teeth and the wonderful bosom".

As Marcus Hearn says, "She was partly responsible for ushering in a bold and brazen era of sexually explicitly horror films in the 1970s, but that should not denigrate her abilities as an actress." Hearn says Ingrid was "very proud" of becoming the first prominent female protagonist in a Hammer movie.
"All fans of Hammer and of British horror are going to miss her terribly."

Pitt also starred in the original (the 'good') The Wicker Man (1973).