Helga Liné

Helga Liné
Born Helga Lina Stern
July 14, 1932
Berlin, Germany

Helga Liné (born Helga Lina Stern on July 14, 1932) is a German-born Portuguese-Spanish film actress and circus acrobat best known for her work in the horror genre of film. She made 132 appearances mostly in film between 1941 and 2006, but most of her work has been in Spanish cinema. Her name is pronounced "Lee - Nay" (emphasis on the 2nd syllable).

Biography

Helga Liné was born Helga Lina Stern on July 14, 1932, in Berlin, Germany. During the Nazi regime she fled Germany at a young age with her family, and took refuge in Portugal. At the age of just 9 she made her first film appearance there in the film Porto de Abrigo. Helga was a dancer and acrobat in circus performances in Portugal throughout the 1940s and later became a model.

In the 1950s she made further appearances in film, but her career took off after she moved to Madrid in 1960. From this point, the red-headed actress made many appearances in the 1960s, particularly in horror films, action or spy thrillers, and westerns. She also starred in Hercules and the Tyrants of Babylon, which was filmed in 1964. Although she appeared in James Bond spoof films such as Agent 077: Mission Bloody Mary (1965) alongside Ken Clark, and giallo films such as My Dear Killer (1972) and Red Rings of Fear (1978), she is well noted for her horror film work in particular, starring as the spy Natasha in the Gothic feature Horror Express (1972), in the title role in The Loreley's Grasp (1974), as a predatory vampire countess in the erotic film The Vampires' Night Orgy (1974), and as the leader of a Satanic cult in the Black Candles (1982). She starred alongside Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy in two notable films in 1973: Horror Rises from the Tomb and The Mummy's Revenge.

Later she would go on to work under Pedro Almodóvar in films such as Labyrinth of Passion in 1982 and Law of Desire in 1986. She also took part in the popular Spanish TV series Verano azul in the early eighties, as a secondary character.

See also

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