Ingrid Pitt

Ingrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov; 21 November 193723 November 2010) was a Polish-British actress and writer, best known for her work in horror films of the 1970s. Early life Ingoushka Petrov was born in Warsaw, Poland, one of two daughters of a father of German Jewish descent and a Polish Jewish mother. During World War II, she and her mother were imprisoned in Stutthof concentration camp in Sztutowo, Free City of Danzig (present-day Nowy Dwór Gdański County, Pomeranian Voivodeship, Poland) but escaped. In Berlin, in the 1950s, Ingoushka married an American soldier, Laud Roland Pitt Jr., and moved to California. After her marriage failed she returned to Europe, but after a small role in a film, she took the shortened stage name "Ingrid Pitt", keeping her former husband's surname, and headed to Hollywood, where she worked as a waitress while trying to make a career in films. Acting career In the early 1960s, Pitt was a member of the Berliner Ensemble, under the guidance of Bertolt Brecht's widow Helene Weigel. In 1965, she made her film debut in Doctor Zhivago, playing a minor role. In 1968, she co-starred in the low-budget science fiction film The Omegans, and in the same year, played British spy Heidi Schmidt in Where Eagles Dare opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood. Ingrid Pitt appeared as Queen Galleia of Atlantis in The Time Monster, which was the fifth serial of the ninth season of Doctor Who, broadcast in six weekly parts, from 20 May through 24 June 1972. She returned to Doctor Who as Dr. Solow in Warriors of the Deep, which was the first serial of the 21st season of the series, broadcast in four twice-weekly parts from 5 to 13 January 1984. Pitt also appears in the second broadcast episode of the short-lived cult ITC series The Zoo Gang, "Mindless Murder" (12 April 1974).