Hazel Court, R.I.P.

Although it's a couple of weeks late, we felt we should mark the passing of one of British horror's finest purveyors of the heaving bodice. Hazel Court was born in Sutton Coldfield in 1926 (though this Independent obit seems to think it was Birmingham), and after getting a break at the Rep went on to various post-war melodramas before making her name on the Hammer films. Her finest hour was having her throat ripped out by a falcon in the glorious Masque of the Red Death, a film which London folk can see tonight at the Curzon Soho being introduced by Roger Corman. Afer that she concentrated on having kids and being a sculptor and died aged 82 on 15 April 2008.

(While on the subject, I have to confess to a certain morbid love of trawling the Independent's obituary section. Amazing who you find there. 'You'll never guess who's dead', as they say in rural Ireland.)