Hazel Court

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Hazel Court (born February 10, 1926 in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, England) is a green-eyed, redheaded British actress who is known for her roles in horror films during the 1950s and early 1960's.

Hazel Court

Her father was a notable cricketer. At the age of fourteen she studied drama at the Birmingham Repertory Theatre and the Alexander Theatre, also in Birmingham. At the age of sixteen she met the director Sir Anthony Asquith in London, which won her a brief part in the 1944 film Champagne Charlie.

She won a British Critics Award for her role as a crippled girl in Carnival (1946). She also appeared in Holiday Camp (1947) and Bond Street (1948). Her first role in a fantasy film was in Ghost Ship (1952). She also appeared in the campy Devil Girl from Mars and Doctor Blood's Coffin.

Hazel Court wanted to act in comedy films, and from 1957 to 1958 she was in the TV comedy series Dick and the Duchess. But she continued to appear in horror movies. In 1957 she had a part in the film The Curse of Frankenstein, where she gained the status of a "cult siren", partly due to her display of cleavage.

She travelled back and forth between Hollywood and England, appearing in four episodes of Alfred Hitchcock's TV series. She had parts in A Woman of Mystery (1958) and The Man Who Would Cheat Death (1959) among others.

By the early 1960s she had permanently moved to the US. She was featured in the Edgar Allan Poe horror movies The Premature Burial (1962), The Raven (1963) and The Masque of the Red Death (1964), the last two with Vincent Price.

From 1949 until 1963 she was married to Irish actor Dermot Walsh, before they divorced. They had a daughter, Sally Walsh, who appeared with her in the film The Curse of Frankenstein.

From 1964 until his death in 1998, she was married to American actor Don Taylor. She retired from the film acting business in 1964 to concentrate on being a wife and mother. They had met while shooting an Alfred Hitchcock Presents episode, and the couple had a son together.

In 1981 she appeared briefly in the third Omen film, The Final Conflict, although she was uncredited. She has also appeared in numerous TV episodes, including Dr. Kildare, Twelve O'Clock High, and The Twilight Zone.

In addition to acting, she is also a painter and sculptor, and has studied sculpting in Italy.

Hazel is reportedly working on her autobiography, but no release date has been announced yet.