Yutte Stensgaard

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Yutte Stensgaard (born Jytte Stensgaard [IPA: jydɛ stɛnsgʌʁ]^{[citation needed]}, May 14, 1946-) is a Danish actress born in Thisted, in Jutland, Denmark. She grew up in the small town of Halvrimmen.

She moved to the UK to improve her English in 1963, she worked as an Au Pair, studied Stenography and became a model for a time. She started her acting career in 1968 in the film La Ragazza con la pistola (English: Girl with a Pistol).

Roles followed in such diverse TV-series as The Saint (with Roger Moore), On The Buses and Doctor in the House, in which she had memorable (but small) guest roles, as well as a larger role in an episode of The Persuaders!, playing a Judo instructor who teams up with Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis).

She also played a larger role in the low-budget sci-fi sex comedy Zeta One (1969), and towards the end of her career appeared as a hostess in the popular game show The Golden Shot (hosted by the late Bob Monkhouse).

Her most famous role however is as the vampire Carmilla/Mircalla in Hammer's Lust for a Vampire being the sequel to The Vampire Lovers starring Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla. The original film was an adaptation of Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, however this film shared little with the novel and only used the vampire characters, and was thus a completely new story, with the semi-lesbian Carmilla infiltrating an all-girl boarding school while falling in love with a novelist.

Yutte left acting in 1972, went to live in the U.S. and had a son called Sten. She became a devoted Christian and for years worked at a radio station, selling air time and refusing to discuss her acting career. She was tracked down by a Danish horror fan, Nicolas Barbano, eventually agreed to an interview (which appeared in Video Watchdog), and soon after was guest of honor at a horror convention, but it is unknown whether she will attend any more.

[edit] Trivia

Yutte Stensgaard auditioned to be a Doctor Who companion, alongside Jon Pertwee's Doctor.
Was married to art director Tony Curtis, and starred alongside the actor Tony Curtis in the episode The Morning After of the British TV series The Persuaders!.
Appeared in the TV series Doctor in the House as well as the film Doctor In Trouble.
Has appeared in the same show as Roger Moore twice, the first being in an episode of The Saint and the next being in The Persuaders!.
Has appeared in the same film as James Robertson Justice twice, first in Zeta One and then in Doctor In Trouble, and Robin Hawdon twice, in Zeta One and again in Burke and Hare.
Starred as Mircalla in Lust for a Vampire and has starred in Zeta One alongside Dawn Addams who was the Countess Karnstein alongside Ingrid Pitt's Mircalla in The Vampire Lovers.

[edit] Literature

Tim Greaves: Yutte Stensgaard: A Pictorial Souvenir (1Shot Publications, England 1992)
Tim Greaves: Yutte Stensgaard: Memories of a Vampire (1Shot Publications, England 1993)
Nicolas Barbano: The Strange Loves of Yutte Stensgaard: An Interview with the Vampire, in Video Watchdog #117 (USA 2005)