Born on 29 December 1937 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, Barbara [Winifred] Steele studied art at the Chelsea Art School and in Paris at the Sorbonne, even as she worked in film. Signed by the Rank Organisation as an art student, she began appearing in minor film and TV roles in the late 1950s. Her contract was sold to 20th Century Fox in 1960, and soon thereafter she abandoned her contract for Italy, where she became famous primarily for her numerous, mostly Gothic horror movies, including some classics. By 1969, she was married to the American screenwriter James Poe (4 Oct 1921 – 24 Jan 1980) and living in California. The couple had one child, Jonathan, and divorced in 1973 (some sources say 1978). Her acting jobs became less and her parts smaller, and she began producing television projects — highly successful ones. She hasn't been seen onscreen in a "real" film since 2014.
And now, enjoy out typically meandering and all-over-the-place career review on a true Babe of Yesteryear and Scream Queen extraordinaire, beginning with...
Houseboat
(1958, dir. Melville Shavelson)
Barbara Steele made her acting debut on television, in Missing Persons, episode six of the British TV series Dial 999 (1958-59), which aired 10 August 1958, roughly two months before she (supposedly) made her un-credited feature-film debut as an extra somewhere in Houseboat, a romantic comedy directed by Melville Shavelson (1 Apr 1917 – 8 Aug 2007).
Missing Persons:
It is doubtful that Ms. Steele in any way stands out in Houseboat, as though many mention her alleged participation, no one who has written about this romantic comedy (featuring a 54-year-old Cary Grant falling for a 24-year-old Sophie Loren — or, if you prefer, a 24-year-old Sophie Loren falling for a 54-year-old Cary Grant) has ever mentioned noticing her. Another un-credited cult name of note also in the background: future matricide victim Susan Cabot* ([9 Jul 1927 – 10 Dec 1986] of The Wasp Woman [1959]) — below, not from the film. She plays a character with a name, namely Mrs. Eleanor Wilson.
* But for a one-off appearance on TV in 1970, in the forgotten series Bracken's World, Susan Cabot quit acting with The Wasp Woman and became a bit of a recluse, living "in a large property in an exclusive neighborhood in Encino in Los Angeles but [...] very rarely seen by neighbors. For all intents and purposes, Cabot had vanished. On the night of December 10, 1986, emergency services received a call from Susan Cabot's home on 4601 Charmion Lane. The caller breathlessly identified himself as Timothy [Scott] Cabot and he reported the entry of a burglar at the house that he shared with his mother. [Criminal Element]" Long story short, her son Timothy, who suffered from dwarfism and appears to have suffered emotional abuse from his unbalanced mother, killed her with a weight-lifting bar while she slept (he got a three-year suspended sentence).
Trailer to
Houseboat:
The massive age difference between the main characters of Houseboat — to put in perspective: Grant was thirty when Loren was still a sperm — is not noticed by the guardians of morality, Common Sense Media, which says instead that the film "is a warm romantic comedy that is exceptionally perceptive and sensitive about the feelings of the children." They also offer the following plot description: "Diplomat Tom Winston (Cary Grant [18 Jan 1904 – 29 Nov 1986]) returns to Washington, D.C. following the death of his estranged wife. His three children, David (Paul Petersen of The Portal [2010 / trailer]), Robert (Charles Herbert [23 Dec 1948 – 31 Oct 2015] of 13 Ghosts [1960 / trailer] and The Colossus of New York [1958 / trailer]), and Elizabeth (Mimi Gibson of The Monster that Challenged the World [1957 / trailer]), have been staying with his wife's sister, Caroline (Martha Hyer [10 Aug 1924 – 31 May 2014] of House of a 1000 Dolls [1967 / trailer, with Maria Rohm], Bert I. Gordon's Picture Mommy Dead [1966 / trailer] and Pyro – The Thing without a Face [1964 / complete movie]). They are hurt and resentful. He takes them to an outdoor orchestra concert, and Robert wanders off and meets Cinzia (Sophia Loren), the daughter of a visiting conductor (Eduardo Ciannelli [30 Aug 1889 – 8 Oct 1969] of The Monster from Green Hell [1957 / full movie]). She has also wandered off, in search of adventure and companionship. When she brings Robert back, Tom sees that Robert likes her, and hires her as their housekeeper. When David causes an accident that destroys their home, the family and Cinzia settle in on an old houseboat. It turns out Cinzia can't cook or do laundry, but the children adore her, and Tom warms to her too. But Caroline's marriage is falling apart, and she is in love with Tom. And the children have ideas of their own when it comes to whether they even want a new mother or not."
Sophia Loren sings Bing! Bang! Bong!
(from Houseboat):
"[The] three kids contribute to the smaller details that elevate Houseboat above your ordinary Hollywood family film. The youngest, Robert, is a nihilist. He hates everybody and everything, doesn't believe in anything, and is obsessed with death. His only comfort in life is his harmonica and the same morose tune that he breathes into it. The oldest, David, is probably the smartest, though he insists on calling himself a 'lame-brain'. The little girl is the kindest and most accepting — she is most accepting of both Tom (she is the first to give him a chance) when the two boys hate him for abandoning them, and Cinzia, who she never doubts. [Unsung Films]"
The narrative of Houseboat based on an unpublished story by "B. Winkle", otherwise known as the actress Betsy Drake (11 Sept 1923 – 27 Oct 2015), Cary Grant's wife at the time he was bonking Loren; indeed, she wrote the original script as a joint project with her hubby, who then not only had her pushed out of the project and replaced with Loren, but had the script rewritten by Melville Shavelson and Jack Rose (4 Nov 1911 – 20 Oct 1995), thus robbing her of any official screenwriting credit at all. (It isn't exactly common knowledge, but despite his on-screen persona Grant was a bit of a dick in his day.)
As a thank you for the film role, Loren married Italian film producer Carlo Ponti (11 Dec 1912 – 9 Jan 2007), who was only 22 years old when Loren was a sperm. The screenplay of Houseboat was nominated for an Oscar, but lost to The Defiant Ones (1958 / trailer), and Grant and Drake remained life-long friends after their divorce in 1962.
Almost in Your Arms (Love Song from Houseboat):
* Yet another Black man shot dead for bonking a white woman — "justifiable homicide", per the LAPD.
But to return to Ms. Loren, if only as an excuse to prove our un-wokeness and include a rare image of her handbraing (below) from an early film titled Era lui, sì, sì (1951 / full Italian version), made during the days when she was still usually un-credited or credited as Sofia Scicolone or (as in that film) as Sophia Lazzaro. Era lui, sì, sì had two versions, one sans nudity and one (meant for France) with nudity. Later in her life, the Oscar-winning actress (in 1962 for Two Women [trailer] and in 1991 for Lifetime Achievement) was to explain, "For the French version, they wanted me to have my chest bare. I did not want to but ... I was hungry. After the scene, they come and say they must do some still pictures of me with nothing on top. I thought it had to be. [Eros Blog]"
Obviously enough, photos of the French version survive, but the film itself is "lost": popular lore has it that her hubby Ponti bought and destroyed all copies of the French release. Nevertheless, non-handbra publicity photos of Ms Loren displaying her natural talents are easily found online.
The German poster to Houseboat above is by the productive commercial artist Bruno Rehak (21 Jan 1910 – Aug 1977); he began doing movie posters after graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 1935 and was particularly active in the 1950s and 60s. The German poster to Houseboat below is by the even more productive commercial artist Lutz Peltzer (1925 – 2003); he did well over film 800 posters, and Houseboat was not one his best — we personally prefer his more breast-heavy posters, like those he made for Umberto Lenzi's Cannibal Ferox (1981) and Eaten Alive (1980). (Both films are looked at in R.I.P. Umberto Lenzi Part IV.)
Bachelor of Hearts
(1958, dir. Wolf Rilla)
Barbara Steele's first credited appearance in a feature film occurred in this film, in which she appears as Fiona, "one of the girl friends of the frat boy group, the Do-Dos. She had a series of comic walk-ons. [Facebook]" That's her below with the film's lead actor, Hardy Krüger (12 Apr 1928 – 19 Jan 2022).
Though the fluffy film was a box-office success, it is relatively forgotten now, and of the few places online that have bothered to write of it, few even notice Barbara Steele's participation. One that does, Vivàsvan Pictures, writes (in German): "Filmed on location at the university campus in Cambridge, the exteriors shot by [cinematographer] Geoffrey Unsworth [26 May 1914 – 28 Oct 1978] are so beautiful that at times one feels reminded of a tourist promotional film. It's worth taking a look at the many, many supporting actors: you will find, among others, John Richardson (19 Jan 1934 – 5 Jan 2021) and Barbara Steele, both of whom were to become stars in Italy shortly afterwards under the direction of Mario Bava."
Scene from
Bachelor of Hearts:
The plot: "On an educational exchange programme, young German mathematics student Wolf Hauser (Hardy Krüger of What the Peeper Saw [1972 / trailer], The Lady of Monza [1969 / trailer] and Liane, Jungle Goddess [1956 / full movie]) arrives in England for a year at Cambridge. Settling in to his rooms at University College, he soon bumps into the beautiful blonde Ann (Sylvia Sims [6 Jan 1934 – 27 Jan 2023] of Asylum [1972 / trailer] and Victim [1961 / trailer]), and a fellow student and neighbour, Hugo (future suicide Ronald Lewis* [11 Dec 1928 – 11 Jan 1982] of Jigsaw [1962 / trailer], Mr Sardonicus [1961 / trailer] and Taste of Fear [1961 / trailer]). Wolf's introduction to British student life is quite the crash-course. He soon finds himself embroiled in Hugo's antics as new head of the exclusive society, the Dodo Club. Through a series of tasks the club find themselves in a number of tricky situations, and Hugo in particular finds himself reliant on Wolf's help on more than one occasion. Meanwhile, the eager student of British culture tries his hand at every sport and hobby going — with mixed results! It is, however, women that the blond-haired charmer appears to excel in. Something that becomes particularly useful when the Dodo Club is forbidden from talking to members of the opposite sex for the rest of term... [British Comedy Guide]"
* Ronald Glasfryn Lewis was a successful actor in British films of the 1950s and 1960s. One of his first major roles was in the British thriller, The Secret Place (1957 / full film), alongside Belinda Lee ([15 Jun 1935 – 12 Mar 1961] of Women of the World [1963]). The first dent to his career was the one to his image in 1965, when he was charged for driving drunk, assaulting a police officer, and being drunk and disorderly (he wasn't charged for assaulting his wife, the minor actress Norah Gorsen [22 Nov 1931 – 15 Apr 2020]). A heavy drinker, Lewis declared bankruptcy in 1981, £21,188 in debt at the age of 52 (adjusted for inflation, that would be around £8,451,469.44 today). Living in a boarding house, he killed himself on 11 January 1982 by means of barbiturate overdose. Fame and fortune are fickle.
"Sylvia Syms is positively radiant as Ann Wainwright — the proverbial English Rose. Glorious views of Cambridge and one or two well-orchestrated set-pieces (the raid on all-female college Girton is notable) make this effortless viewing. [Nostalgia Central]"
"Scriptwriter Frederic Raphael (The King's Whore [1990 / trailer]) said that he and Leslie Bricusse (29 Jan 1931 – 19 Oct 2021), both recent graduates of Cambridge University when they first wrote this film, meant the movie to be a charming English comedy and a tribute to their alma mater. The producers, however, saw it as a vehicle for the German actor Hardy Kruger, whom they were trying to build into a star in British films and ordered extensive rewriting, [which] he felt changed the picture. [Facebook]"
Berlin-born director Wolf Rilla (16 Mar 1920 – 1 Oct 2005), whose most famous film is surely the original version of Village of the Damned (1960 / trailer), was the son of the German actor Walter Rilla (22 Aug 1894 – 21 Nov 1980), a successful actor in Germany of Jewish descent who fled the country when Adolf Hitler came to power.
Walter Rilla, BTW, is found in such fine stuff as Jess Franco's The Girl from Rio (1969, with Maria Rohm), Day of Anger (1967 / trailer), 4 Schlüssel (1966), Don Sharp's The Face of Fu Manchu (1965 / trailer), the Wallace krimis Room 13 (1964, with Joachim Fuchsberger) and The Forger from London (1961), Harry Kümel's Malpertuis / The Legend of Doom House (1971 / trailer below), and so much more.
Malpertuis / The Legend of Doom House:
The 39 Steps
(1959, dir. Ralph Thomas)
Barbara Steele's next appearance on screen was somewhere in this color remake of Alfred Hitchcock's B&W The 39 Steps (1935 / trailer), released in March 1959, in which she was an un-credited extra somewhere in the background.
Steele's appearance, above, is so non-noticeable that even the Movie Dude doesn't find her... though he manages to name another un-credited extra, Jill Haworth, below, in her feature-film debut as a schoolgirl on a train.
Director Ralph Thomas (10 Aug 195 – 17 Mar 2001), not exactly a specialist of straight "thrillers", went on to do better films, such as Deadlier than the Male (1967 / trailer) and Some Girls Do (1969 / trailer).
"The 1959 version of The 39 Steps was the first remake of Alfred Hitchcock's famous 1935 spy tale. It is also proof that unnecessary remakes are not just a 21st century phenomenon. [Hitless Wonder]" Nevertheless, the film was a financial success.
Trailer to
The 39 Steps:
"When Richard Hannay (Kenneth More [20 Sept 1914 – 12 Jul 1982]) simply picks up a baby's rattle in Regent's Park, he inadvertently sparks off a trail which leads to espionage and murder. From the moment he hands the rattle to the baby's nurse (Faith Brook [16 Feb 1922 – 11 Mar 2012] of Bloodbath / Las flores del vicio [1975 / scene / scene]), he is trapped in a web of intrigue. The 'nannie' is in fact a secret agent with orders to smash espionage organisation intent on smuggling out of the country plans of vital importance to Britain. But then she is murdered. All Hanay knows is that the 'brain' of the organisation is to be found in Scotland. But what is the mystery of the last words uttered by the 'nannie' before her death... 'the 39 steps'? [Virtual History]"
"This version of The 39 Steps is a relatively early entry in the list of Hitchcock remakes. [Poster below.] Although officially based on the John Buchan novel of 1915, it's very obviously a straightforward remake of the Hitchcock film, and owes little to the book. [... Frank] Harvey's script adds a couple of new elements and makes a few minor changes, but otherwise follows the plot and structure of the Hitchcock film very closely. Hannay's having to address a political meeting is replaced in this version by his being mistaken for the guest speaker at a girls' school, where he gamely attempts to give a talk on 'the woods and the wayside' ('Remember girls, don't fall by the wayside ... and stay out of the woods!'). [Cinema Essentials]"
The Finnish actress Taina Elg, who took on the role played by Madeleine Carroll in the original version of the unwilling fellow traveler, went on to do a far more entertaining movie, namely the 1970 "Arnold Strong" movie:
Hercules in New York:
(1959, dir. Basil Dearden)
Plot, as given at Mubi: "A pregnant college student named Sapphire Robbins (Yvonne Buckingham, below from the film) is murdered in London's Hampstead Heath. When police superintendent Robert Hazard (Nigel Patrick [2 May 1912 – 21 Sept 1981] of Tales from the Crypt [1972 / trailer]) discovers that the victim was a light-skinned black woman passing as white, it upends his initial assumptions."
Basically: if you are Black and "passing", you gonna die. "It was considered a progressive film for its time. [Wikipedia]"
Rather a box office hit in its day, the success of Sapphire supposedly inspired the scriptwriter Janet Green (4 Jul 1908 – 30 Mar 1993) and director Basil Dearden (1 Jan 1911 – 23 Mar 1971) to tackle another "controversial" theme two years later in Victim (1961 / trailer).
Barbara Steele remains un-credited in Sapphire — that's her from her scene, directly above — but she has a speaking part. We saw and reviewed the film way back in 2009; click onto the linked title to go to what we wrote.
Sapphire –
full film:
The film was given a novelization written by the forgotten author E.G. Cousins (19 Nov 1893 – Jul 1996) the same year it was released.
As perhaps to be expected, the actress playing the passing-as-white "Sapphire" was a white woman, Yvonne Buckingham, of such fine films as the Richard Gordon-produced Haunted Strangler (1958 / trailer), Jimmy Sangster's Blood of the Vampire (1958), Urge to Kill (1960 / trailer) and The Tell-Tale Heart (1960 / full movie).
"In Basil Dearden's Sapphire (1959), which Steele has never seen, the Rank starlet pops up as a London art student, but immediately vanishes: as fine as the film is, it's hard not to want it to forget its plot and veer off to follow her bohemian adventures. 'I had this Rank contract,' Steele recalls, 'but I was still studying art history in London. They were very nice and let me get my degree, but they would put me into these films for one line.' [BFI]" (In this film, she had a few more than just one...)
The Heart of a Man
(1959, dir. Herbert Wilcox)
Barbara Steele's scenes were deleted from this music-minded "drama", which we wouldn't even look at if it weren't for who made it, Herbert Wilcox (19 April 1890 – 15 May 1977). Wilcox was, for a long time, a very successful producer and director — The Heart of a Man, actually, was his swan song as director. One of his early productions, the lost horror film Black Waters (1929), directed by the American Marshall Neilan (11 Apr 1891 – 27 Oct 1958), may have been filmed in the USA but was a British production and, by dint of its release date (April 1929), is the first British talkie film, an honor commonly bestowed upon Hitchcock's first talkie, Blackmail (1929 / full film), which was released some months later (July 1929).
The Heart of a Man, released in July 1959, was a vehicle for the popular British easy listening singer Frankie Vaughan (3 Feb 1928 – 17 Sep 1999), who was briefly a household name in the USA when he starred with some actress named Marilyn Monroe in Let's Make Love (1960 / trailer). Anne Heywood, above not from the film, plays the pulchritude of The Heart of the Man.
Title track —
Frankie Vaughan sings The Heart of a Man:
Plot, as found at AV Club: "Frankie (Frankie Vaughan), an out-of-work sailor, meets Bud (Peter Sinclair [31 May 1900 – 1994]), a tramp who claims he is a millionaire. Bud gives him a shilling and promises him that if he can make £100 from it, he will be given £1,000. Armed with this, Frankie goes off to pursue his singing career and win the heart of Julie (Anne Heywood), the girlfriend of upper-class criminal Tony (Tony Britton [9 Jun 1924 – 22 Dec 2019])."
Everyone involved in The Heart of Man made better films elsewhere... Tony Britton, for example, The People that Time Forgot (1977 / trailer); Anne Heywood, The Brain (1962 / full movie), the laughable I Want What I Want (1972 / full movie), the trashy The Nun and the Devil (1973 / full movie below), and Don Sharp's What Waits Below (1984 / trailer); and Peter Sinclair, Invasion (1965 / trailer).
The Nun and the Devil:
Upstairs and Downstairs
(1959, dir. Ralph Thomas)
Credit sequence:
Barbara Steele's next role was in this British comedy directed by Ralph Thomas (10 Aug 195 – 17 Mar 2001), the man behind the previously mentioned remake of The 39 Steps.
As Mary, her part may have been small, but she at least received onscreen credit (see the credit sequence further above).
Trailer to
Upstairs and Downstairs:
If the film deserves any note, however, it is probably for being the first English-language film of Claudia Cardinale (whom as you surely must know, is found in the must-see masterpiece Once Upon a Time in the West [1968 / trailer]) "as Maria, a sailor-loving maid who's quickly shown the front door."
An unknown Oliver Reed (13 Feb 1938 – 2 May 1999) appears, un-credited, as a train passenger.
Music to
Upstairs and Downstairs
(feat. The Michael Sammes Singers):
Plot, as supplied by Eleanor Mannikka: "When Richard (Michael Craig, of Turkey Shoot [1982 / trailer] & Inn of the Damned [1975 / trailer]) and Kate (Anne Heywood [11 Dec 1931 – 27 Oct 2023] of The Lady of Monza [1969 / trailer] and The Nun and the Devil [1973 / full movie]) return from their honeymoon, they discover that Kate's father (James Robertson Justice [15 Jun 1907 – 2 Jul 1975] of The Love Factor a.k.a. Zeta One [1969 / trailer], Don Sharp's The Face of Fu Manchu [1965 / trailer, with Joachim Fuchsberger] & The Living Idol [1957 / trailer]) has given them a maid as a wedding gift. The trouble is that the maid has a good portion of the U.S. Navy in the house when they arrive, in a more-or-less wild orgy. Exit maid. The couple then hire Rosemary (Joan Hickson [5 Aug 1906 – 17 Oct 1998] of the classic must-see Theatre of Blood [1973 / trailer]) who tipples to excess, making her service at a dinner party an insurmountable challenge. Exit Rosemary. Enter Blodwen (Joan Sims [9 May 1930 – 27 June 2001] of Room 43 [1958, with Herbert Lom]), a homesick woman from Wales who cannot live outside her native environment. Exit Blodwen. And so it goes, even through a gorgeous French maid (Mylene Demongeot [29 Sept 1935 – 1 Dec 2022], below, of 12 + 1 a.k.a. Thirteen Chairs [1969 / full film] and Uncle Tom's Cabin [1965, with Herbert Lom]) who causes more than a mild uproar among the couple's friends. It seems the help is either too bad or too good. [All Movie]"
Based on Ronald Scott Thorn's novel of the same name, "the film is built upon a solitary joke — the incapability of a young couple to hire competent 'help' — but it's a solid premise for subversively escalating humor that often comes in surprising forms, and thus while the anticipation of repetitive disaster is the basis of the comedy, [...] it is the unpredictable degrees of eccentricity which sustains the momentum to the very end. [Chandler Swain]
Next month:
Barbara Steele, Pt. II (1960-61)
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