Patrick Mower (born 12 September 1938), whose original name was Patrick Archibald Shaw, is an English actor well known for his many television and occasional film roles, often as a detective or secret agent.

Life[link]

Mower was born in Oxford to a Welsh father and English mother.

In his 2007 autobiography, Mower states that having believed for years that his year of birth was 1940, but later discovered that his birth was not registered and he was born on 12 September 1938 (On the IMDb it says "1940").^[1] In addition, several reference books on film and television, including Who's Who On the Screen (1983) and Who's Who on Television (1996), give Mower's town of birth as Pontypridd, South Wales, instead of Oxford. In 2007 Mower took part in the BBC Wales programme Coming Home about his Welsh family history.

He attended Southfield Grammar School in Oxford,^[2] and after first training as an engineering draughtsman at the [Pressed Steel Co. Ltd.] Cowley plant, he graduated from RADA. He first came to prominence as an actor in the spy series Callan in the early 1970s. He went on to appear as DCI Tom Haggerty in Special Branch alongside George Sewell, and DS Steve Hackett in the police series Target, and featured in one of the last Carry On films, Carry On England. Many television roles have included guest appearances in Jason King, Space 1999, UFO, Minder, The Sweeney and Bergerac (as Eddie St.Pierre). He was a regular panelist on the murder mystery programme Whodunnit?. He currently stars as Rodney Blackstock in the ITV soap opera Emmerdale.

For seven years Mower was the partner of the actress Suzanne Danielle.^[3][4]

Selected filmography[link]

• Haunted (1966-1967)
• The Devil Rides Out (1968)
• The Smashing Bird I Used to Know (1969)
• Cry of the Banshee (1970)
• UFO (1970)
• Percy (1971)
• Black Beauty (1971)
• To Catch a Spy (1971)
• Jason King (1972)
• Callan (1972)
• Carry on England (1976)
• One Away (1976)
• The Devil's Advocate (1977)
• Marco Polo (1982-1983)
• Dark Side Of The Sun (1983)
• Tales Of The Unexpected (1984)
• Hammer House of Mystery and Suspense (1985)
• Chucklevision (1997)
• Emmerdale – Rodney Blackstock (24 October 2000—)

References[link]

1954 Carry On Sargeant

External links[link]

• Patrick Mower at the Internet Movie Database

Ryan Lamb (born 18 May 1986 in Gloucester) is a rugby union player who plays at fly-half for Northampton Saints in the Aviva Premiership.

Club career[link]

A former pupil of St Peter's High School, he made his professional debut in the European Challenge Cup quarter final against Brive in 2006 which Gloucester Rugby won comfortably.^[2] Lamb started in the subsequent final, as Gloucester defeated his future club, London Irish.^[3]

He became first choice at Fly-half for the Cherry & Whites as they topped the table during the 2006–07 Guinness Premiership and 2007–08 Guinness Premiership seasons. However, they were thwarted in the play-offs in both seasons by the Leicester Tigers.^[4][5]

Gloucester's continued failures in key games saw Dean Ryan lose faith in Lamb. He was dropped after Gloucester's home Heineken Cup defeat to Cardiff Blues in January 2009^[6] amid concern that he failed to exercise sufficient control over games.^[7]

Lamb was released by Gloucester at the end of the 2008–09 season.^[8] Lamb signed for London Irish.^[9]

During the Guinness Premiership match between London Irish and Sale Sharks on the 28th March 2010, Lamb successfully converted a penalty to take his points tally for that competition past the 500-mark. On the 24th March 2011 he signed a contract which will take him to Northampton Saints for the 2011/12 season.^{[citation needed]}

International career[link]

In 2006, Lamb represented England at the IRB U21 World Championship.^[10] He debuted for the England Saxons on his 21st birthday against the USA at the 2007 Churchill Cup.^[11] Lamb was also part of the Saxons side that defeated Ireland A on 1 February 2008 and competed at the 2008 Churchill Cup, which the Saxons won.^[12][13][14]

Personal life[link]

Lamb was arrested in the early hours of 1 March 2009 outside Subtone, a nightclub in Cheltenham. Lamb has since been charged with assault.^[15]

Lamb was later fined for the incident.^[16]

On 9 May 2010, Lamb was hit in the face with a bottle after an altercation involving fellow London Irish players and supporters of Chelsea football club in Clapham. He was taken to hospital but was not seriously injured.^[17]

References[link]

External links[link]

• London Irish profile
• Gloucester Rugby Profile
• England profile

Patrick Henry
1st & 6th Governor of Virginia
In office July 5, 1776 – June 1, 1779
Preceded by	Edmund Pendleton (Acting)
Succeeded by	Thomas Jefferson
In office December 1, 1784 – December 1, 1786
Preceded by	Benjamin Harrison V
Succeeded by	Edmund Randolph
Personal details
Born	May 29, 1736 Hanover County, Virginia
Died	June 6, 1799(1799-06-06) (aged 63) Brookneal, Virginia
Political party	Anti-Federalist Anti-Administration Federalist
Spouse(s)	Sarah Shelton Dorothea Dandridge
Profession	Planter Lawyer
Signature

Patrick Henry (May 29, 1736 – June 6, 1799) was an attorney, planter and politician who became known as an orator during the movement for independence in Virginia in the 1770s. A Founding Father, he served as the first and sixth post-colonial Governor of Virginia, from 1776 to 1779 and from 1784 to 1786.

Henry led the opposition to the Stamp Act of 1765 and is remembered for his "Give me Liberty, or give me Death!" speech. Along with Samuel Adams and Thomas Paine, he is remembered as one of the most influential exponents of Republicanism, promoters of the American Revolution and independence, especially in his defense of historic rights. With his first marriage, he became a landowner and slaveholder, and later owned thousands of acres of land in Virginia.

After the Revolution, Henry was a leader of the anti-federalists in Virginia. He opposed the United States Constitution, fearing that it endangered the rights of the States as well as the freedoms of individuals; he helped gain adoption of the Bill of Rights. By 1798 however, he supported President John Adams and the Federalists; he denounced passage of the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions as he feared the social unrest and widespread executions that had followed the increasing radicalism of the French Revolution.

With his cousin and her husband, by 1779 he owned a 10,000-acre (40 km²) plantation known as Leatherwood, where he owned 78 slaves and his cousin owned at least that many. In 1794 he and his wife retired to Red Hill Plantation, which had 520-acre (2.1 km²) in Charlotte County. It was also a working tobacco plantation.

Early years[link]

Henry was born in Studley, Hanover County, Virginia on May 29, 1736.^[1] His father was John Henry, an immigrant from Aberdeenshire, Scotland, who had attended King's College, Aberdeen before emigrating to the Colony of Virginia in the 1720s.^[2] Settling in Hanover County, in about 1732 John Henry married Sarah Winston Syme, a wealthy widow from a prominent Hanover County family of English ancestry.^[3] Patrick Henry was once thought to have been of humble origins, but he was born into the middle ranks of the Virginia landed gentry.^[1]

Henry attended local schools for a few years, and then was tutored by his father. He tried to start in business but was not successful.

Marriage and family[link]

View of Rural Plains near Totopotomoy Creek in Virginia. Henry was reportedly married to Sarah Shelton in the parlor.

In 1754 Henry married Sarah Shelton, reportedly in the parlor of her family house, Rural Plains. (It also became known as Shelton House.)

As a wedding gift, her father gave the couple six slaves and the 300-acre (1.2 km²) Pine Slash Farm near Mechanicsville. With his marriage, he became a slaveholder and landowner. Henry worked with his slaves on the land because it was a small property; it was exhausted from tobacco cultivation and he could not gain profitable yields. After the main house burned, the couple moved for a short time with their two children into the 20 by 60 foot Honeymoon Cottage, a one-story building with attic. They later moved to the Hanover Tavern, owned by Sarah's father. They sold Pine Slash Plantation in 1764, after Henry started working as a lawyer.^[4]

The Henrys had six children together. In 1771 the family moved to Scotchtown Plantation, also in Hanover County. Sarah became mentally ill and died there in 1775. (See below.)

On October 25, 1777, Henry at age 41 married his second wife, the 22-year-old Dorothea Dandridge (1755–1831). The next year they moved to Williamsburg after his election as governor and stayed through his two terms. They had eleven children together. In 1779 they moved to the 10,000-acre (40 km²) Leatherwood Plantation, which he bought with his cousin and her husband in Henry County, Virginia. He had definitely arrived in the elite planter class of the slave society.

Career[link]

Henry began a career as a planter, but the soil was poor and their main house was destroyed by fire in 1757.^[1] He tried a mercantile store, but it failed. While reading for the law, he continued to farm at Pine Slash Plantation before qualifying as a lawyer in 1760. He read the law with an established firm.^[1]

Henry first gained local attention in a case dubbed the "Parson's Cause" (1763). It dealt with whether the price of tobacco paid to established clergy for their services, should be set by the colonial government or by the Crown. After the British Parliament overruled Virginia's Two Penny Act, which had limited the established clergy's salaries, the Reverend James Maury filed suit against the vestry of Louisa County for payment of back wages. When Maury won the suit, a jury was called in Hanover County to determine how much Maury should be paid. Henry was brought in at the last minute to argue on behalf of Louisa County.

He delivered an impassioned speech that denounced clerics who challenged Virginia's laws as "enemies of the community" and any king who annulled good laws, such as the Two Penny Act, as a "tyrant" who "forfeits all right to his subject's obedience".^[5] Henry urged the jury to make an example of Maury. After less than five minutes of deliberation, they awarded Maury one penny.^[6] The Hanover County Courthouse, where Patrick Henry argued the case, is used as an active courthouse. Located along historic U.S. Route 301, the courthouse is adjacent to Hanover Tavern (rebuilt in 1791 after burning) where Patrick Henry lodged while on the case. The courthouse is the third oldest courthouse still in use in the United States.

Stamp Act[link]

In 1765 Henry was elected from Louisa County for the House of Burgesses, the legislative body of the Virginia colony, to fill a vacated seat in the assembly. When he arrived in Williamsburg, the legislature was already in session. Nine days after being sworn in, Henry introduced the Virginia Stamp Act Resolutions, "in language so extreme that some Virginians said it smacked of treason".^[7]

Patrick Henry's "Treason" speech before the House of Burgesses in an 1851 painting by Peter F. Rothermel

The new representative waited for an opportunity when the more conservative members of the House were away. As 24% attendance was considered sufficient for a quorum, Henry succeeded, through much debate, in getting his proposal passed.

It was possibly the most anti-British American political action to that point, and some credit the Resolutions with being one of the main catalysts of the Revolution.^{[citation needed]} The proposals were based on principles that were well-established British rights, such as the right to be taxed by one's own representatives. They asserted that the colonial assemblies had the exclusive right to impose taxes on the colonies and could not assign that right.

Many colonists considered his following words inflammatory: "Caesar had his Brutus; Charles the First his Cromwell; and George the Third ....may he profit by their example. If this be treason, make the most of it!" According to the biographer Richard Beeman, the legend of this speech grew more dramatic over the years. He thinks that Henry probably did not say, "If this be treason, make the most of it."^{[citation needed]} The only account of the speech written down at the time by an eyewitness (which came to light many years later) records that Henry apologized after being accused of uttering treasonable words, and assured the House that he was loyal to the king.^{[citation needed]} Henry's speech was radical enough to gain notice at the time and has achieved mythic status since, even if his exact words are unknown.

Sarah's illness[link]

In 1771 Henry and his wife Sarah moved into their Scotchtown plantation in Hanover County, along with their children: Martha ("Patsy"), Anne, Elizabeth ("Betsy"), John, William, and Edmund ("Neddy"). Sarah "started to manifest disturbing behaviors which could not at that time be diagnosed or treated. ...her mental condition deteriorated rapidly, and when she became dangerous to herself and others, she was clothed in a 'Quaker shirt,' an early form of strait jacket."^[8]

Following the general practice of the time, Henry's friends and his physician, Dr. Thomas Hinde, recommended she be moved to the public hospital in Williamsburg. But, after inspecting the facilities, Henry

"saw that if he agreed, his wife would be locked into a windowless brick cell containing only a filthy mattress on the floor and a chamber pot. There she would be chained to the wall with a leg iron. Appalled by what he saw, he instead prepared a private, two-room apartment for her in the basement of Scotchtown. Each room had a window, providing light, air circulation, and a pleasant view of the grounds. The apartment also had a fireplace, which provided good heat in the winter, and a comfortable bed to sleep in."^[8]

Henry (or a domestic slave when he was away on business) took care of Sarah and "watched over her, fed her, bathed her, clothed her, and prevented her from harming herself."^[8] Sarah died in the spring of 1775.

"Because of her illness-then thought to have been caused by being 'possessed by the devil' – she was denied a religious funeral service or a Christian burial. Her grieving husband, 'bowed down and bleeding under the heaviest sorrows and personal distresses,' buried her thirty feet from the home they shared and planted a lilac tree next to her grave to remember her. The tree still stands there, a few steps from the door to her basement."^[8]

Scotchtown is a National Historic Landmark.

American Revolution[link]

Responding to pleas from Massachusetts that the colonies create committees of correspondence to coordinate their activities related to the British. Henry took the lead in Virginia. In March 1773, along with Thomas Jefferson and Richard Henry Lee, Henry led the Virginia House of Burgesses to adopt resolutions providing for a standing committee of correspondence. Each colony set up such committees, and they led to the formation of the First Continental Congress in 1774, to which Henry was elected.

A Hue & Cry, Virginia broadside, 1775

Patrick Henry is best known for the speech he made in the House of Burgesses on March 23, 1775, in Saint John's Church in Richmond, Virginia. With the House undecided on whether to mobilize for military action against the encroaching British military force, Henry argued in favor of mobilization. Forty-two years later, Henry's first biographer, William Wirt, working from oral histories, tried to reconstruct what Henry said. According to Wirt, Henry ended his speech with words that have since become immortalized:

"Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, Give me Liberty, or give me Death!"

The crowd, by Wirt's account, jumped up and shouted "To Arms! To Arms!". For 160 years Wirt's account was taken at face value. In the 1970s, historians began to question the authenticity of Wirt's reconstruction.^[9] Contemprorary historians observe that Henry was known to have used fear of Indian and slave revolts in promoting military action against the British and that, according to the only written first-hand account of the speech, Henry used some graphic name-calling that Wirt did not include in his heroic rendition.^[10]

In August 1775, Henry was commissioned as colonel of the 1st Virginia Regiment. At the outset of the Revolutionary War, Henry led militia against the Royal Governor Lord Dunmore in defense of some disputed gunpowder, an event known as the Gunpowder Incident.

Henry and others were also building institutions: in early November 1775 he and the young attorney James Madison were elected as founding trustees of Hampden-Sydney College, which opened for classes on November 10. Henry continued as a trustee until his death in 1799. As a representative in the state legislature beginning in 1780, Henry was instrumental in 1783 in achieving passage of the College's Charter, which had been delayed by the war. He is probably the author of the Oath of Loyalty to the new Republic included in that charter. Seven of his sons would attend the new college; six graduated.

In 1776 Henry was elected by the new state legislature as the first post-colonial Governor of Virginia, for a one-year term. He was twice re-elected, serving until 1779. (The new state limited governors to three terms in succession, and then required a 4-year break.) As governor, he presided over several Virginia militia expeditions against the Cherokee people in the west, who were allied with the British. He appointed his friend Joseph Martin, an explorer, as state agent to the Cherokee nation. Henry also sometimes invested in real estate with Martin. The explorer was the namesake of Martin, the county seat of Henry County.

Boulder and plaque marking former location of Leatherwood Plantation in Henry County, Virginia

In 1779, Henry and his family moved to the 10,000-acre (40 km²) Leatherwood Plantation in Henry County, Virginia. He and his first cousin Ann Winston Carr and her husband Col. George Waller jointly owned the immense property.^[11] His eldest daughter Martha and her husband John Fontaine also lived with them on the plantation. Henry lived at Leatherwood from 1779 to 1784; he owned 75 slaves and cultivated tobacco.^[12] In 1782, according to the tax list, Henry owned 64 slaves, his son-in-law John Fontaine owned 18 (he and Henry's daughter were living there as well), and his cousin's husband George Waller also owned 18 slaves, making 100 total among the three men.^[13]

From 1780 to 1784, he served in the Virginia Assembly. After he was elected as governor a second time and went to Richmond, his oldest daughter Martha and her husband John managed the Henry family portion of the large Leatherwood Plantation. John died in 1792 and Martha managed it until 1818.

After the Revolution[link]

In 1784, Henry was elected again for a one-year term by the legislature as governor of Virginia, and re-elected twice more, serving until 1786. He declined to attend the Constitutional Convention of 1787, saying that he "smelt a rat in Philadelphia, tending toward the monarchy."^{[citation needed]} An ardent supporter of state rights, Henry was an outspoken critic of the United States Constitution. He worried that the untested office of the presidency could devolve into a monarchy and became a leading opponent of James Madison.

Henry served as a representative to the Virginia convention of 1788, where he argued against ratifying the U.S. Constitution, on the grounds that it gave too much power to the federal government. It passed. He was instrumental in having the Bill of Rights adopted to amend the new Constitution and protect individual rights.^[14] He was chosen as a presidential elector for the 1789 election from Campbell District, along with nine other men.^[15] That District consisted of Bedford, Campbell, Charlotte, Franklin, Halifax, Henry, Pittsylvania, and Prince Edward counties, covering the area between Danville and Lynchburg in the south of Virginia.^[16] The men all voted for Washington with one of their votes, and split their second votes among other candidates.^[15]

In 1794 Henry and his wife Dorothy retired to his 520-acre plantation of Red Hill near Brookneal, Virginia in Charlotte County, where he conducted his law practice. President George Washington offered Henry the post of Secretary of State in 1795, which he declined due to opposing the president's Federalist policies. But, following the widespread executions and radicalism of the continuing French Revolution, Henry began to fear a similar fate could befall America, which had suffered populist unrest. In 1798 he spoke in behalf of the Federalist Party.^[17]

Henry supported the Federalist policies of Washington and Adams. He denounced the Virginia and Kentucky Resolutions, which called for the rights of a state to nullify a federal law it considered unconstitutional. Henry warned that civil war was threatened because Virginia,

"had quit the sphere in which she had been placed by the Constitution, and, in daring to pronounce upon the validity of federal laws, had gone out of her jurisdiction in a manner not warranted by any authority, and in the highest degree alarming to every considerate man; that such opposition, on the part of Virginia, to the acts of the general government, must beget their enforcement by military power; that this would probably produce civil war, civil war foreign alliances, and that foreign alliances must necessarily end in subjugation to the powers called in."^[18]

In 1798 President John Adams nominated Henry as special emissary to France, but he declined due to failing health. He strongly supported John Marshall. At the urging of Washington, Henry stood for and was elected to the Virginia House of Delegates as a Federalist.^[19] Three months prior to taking his seat, he died of stomach cancer on June 6, 1799, while at Red Hill, his plantation.^[20]

Some time following his death, his widow Dorothy married Judge Edmund Winston, Henry's first cousin and the executor of his estate.^[20]

Honored on US postage[link]

Patrick Henry issue of 1955

Credo Issue of 1961

Patrick Henry is prominent among the few people in early American history other than American Presidents to have been honored on US postage stamps.

• On October 7, 1955, the US Post Office issued a 1-dollar postage stamp honoring the famous orator and long time Governor of Virginia. It was one in a series of twenty seven stamps in the Liberty issue. A painting of Henry by American artist Alonzo Chappel (1828–1887) was used as the inspiration and as the model by the engraver for this issue.^[21][22]
• In 1960, the US Post Office issued the CREDO Issue, a series of six stamps with famous quotes engraved on the face of each one. Patrick Henry's most famous words are inscribed on the front of this 4-cent issue, first released in Richmond, Virginia, on January 11, 1961.^[22][23] – See also: US Presidents on US postage stamps

Monuments and memorials[link]

Red Hill Plantation, Charlotte County, Virginia, circa 1907

Several sites associated with Henry's life have been honored. Scotchtown Plantation is a National Historic Landmark. Monuments are located at his retirement home and grave site, designated the Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial.

Places named in honor of Patrick Henry date from the early years of the United States, including Henry County, Virginia, Henry County, Kentucky, Patrick County, Virginia, Henry County, Georgia, Henry County, Ohio, Henry County, Tennessee, Henry County, Alabama, Henry County, Illinois, and Henry County, Missouri after an 1841 name change. Patrick Henry Village in Heidelberg, Germany is also named for him.

Henry helped to establish Hampden-Sydney College in Virginia. It is the 10th-oldest institution of higher education in the United States. Six of his sons graduated from this college. He was made an honorary member of the college's literary society, and the Patrick Henry Scholars are named for him.

A variety of schools, ships, and other institutions named after him, including jurisdictions. Named in his honor are Emory & Henry College in Emory, Virginia, eight high schools (including three in Virginia, more than for any other person in the Commonwealth), Patrick Henry Community College in Martinsville, Virginia; and Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia. The Red Hill Patrick Henry National Memorial donated some property for the nearby Patrick Henry Boys and Girls Plantation, a private, Christian residential facility for at-risk youth.

At least three ships have been named in Henry's honor: the Civil War Confederate Navy steamboat CSS Patrick Henry, the first World War II Liberty ship launched, SS Patrick Henry, and ballistic missile submarine USS Patrick Henry (SSBN-599).

Fort Patrick Henry was built during the American Revolutionary War along the South Fork Holston River at the present-day site of Kingsport, Tennessee. This fort serves as the namesake of Fort Patrick Henry Dam and its reservoir on the river.^[24]

Camp Patrick Henry, a 1,700-acre (6.9 km²) complex in Newport News, Virginia, was a United States Army base from late 1942 to the late 1960s. Since decommissioned, it is the site of the Newport News/Williamsburg International Airport on 925 acres (3.74 km²). When opened in 1949, the airport was first called Patrick Henry Field. The airport code is still PHF.

See also[link]

• Founding Fathers of the United States
• American Revolution
• History of Virginia
• Parson's Cause
• U.S. Constitution, ratification debates

Notes[link]

References[link]

• Beeman, Richard R. (1974). Patrick Henry: A Biography. New York: McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0-07-004280-2. 
• Jewett, Thomas. "Patrick Henry: America's Radical Dissenter" Early America Review Summer/Fall 2004
• Kidd, Thomas S. Patrick Henry: First Among Patriots (2011)
• Mayer, Henry (2001). Son of Thunder: Patrick Henry and the American Republic. New York: Grove Press. 
• Meade, Robert D. (1957–1969). Patrick Henry: 2 volumes. 
• Raphael, Ray (2004). Founding Myths: Stories that Hide Our Patriotic Past. New York: The New Press. ISBN 1-56584-921-3. 
• Unger, Harlow (2010). www.harlowgilesunger.com Lion of Liberty: Patrick Henry and the Call To a New Nation. Cambridge: Da Capo Press. ISBN 978-0-306-81886-8. http://www.harlowgilesunger.com www.harlowgilesunger.com. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Patrick Henry

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Patrick Henry

• Henry's Early Life and Times from Patrick Henry National Memorial
• Patrick Henry, Voice of the American Revolution, patrickhenry.com
• Works by Patrick Henry at Project Gutenberg
• Text of 1775 "Liberty or death" speech
• Address opposing US Constitution
• Patrick Henry at Find-A-Grave
• Patrick Henry Letters
• Patrick Henry Monument, Henry County, Virginia, virginia.org
• "Scotchtown". http://www.apva.org/scotchtown/.  "Scotchtown". http://www.co.hanover.va.us/pio/historic/031209f.htm.  Scotchtown Plantation, Henry family home from 1771–1778

Archival Records

• A Guide to the Executive Papers of Governor Patrick Henry, 1784–1786 at The Library of Virginia

v t e Governors of Virginia Henry Jefferson Fleming Nelson Harrison Henry E. Randolph B. Randolph H. Lee Brooke Wood Monroe Page Cabell Tyler Sr. G. Smith Monroe G. Smith P. Randolph Barbour Nicholas Preston T. Randolph Pleasants Tyler Jr. Giles J. Floyd Tazewell Robertson Campbell Gilmer Patton Rutherfoord Gregory McDowell W. "EB" Smith J.B. Floyd Johnson Wise Letcher W. "EB" Smith Pierpont Wells Walker Kemper Holliday Cameron F. Lee McKinney O'Ferrall J.H. Tyler Montague Swanson Mann Stuart Davis Trinkle Byrd Pollard Peery Price Darden Tuck Battle Stanley Almond A. Harrison Godwin Holton Godwin Dalton Robb Baliles Wilder Allen Gilmore Warner Kaine McDonnell

Ingrid Pitt (21 November 1937 – 23 November 2010) was an actress best known for her work in horror films of the 1960s and 1970s.^[1]

Background[link]

Pitt was born Ingoushka Petrov in Warsaw, Poland to a German father of Russian descent and a Polish Jewish mother.^[2] During World War II she and her family were imprisoned in a concentration camp. She survived and in Berlin in the 1950s met and married an American soldier and ended up living in California. After her marriage failed, she returned to Europe but after a small role in a film, she headed to Hollywood where she worked as a waitress while trying to make a career in the movies. Her natural hair colour was brown, though she frequently lightened it to blonde.

Acting career[link]

In the early 1960s Pitt was a member of the prestigious 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 "Heidi" in Where Eagles Dare opposite Richard Burton and Clint Eastwood.

It was her work with Hammer Film Productions that elevated her to cult figure status. She starred as "Carmilla/Mircalla" in The Vampire Lovers (1970), a film based on Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's novella Carmilla, and played the title role in Countess Dracula (1971), a film based on the legends around Countess Elizabeth Báthory. Pitt also appeared in the Amicus horror anthology film The House That Dripped Blood (1971) and had a small part in the film The Wicker Man (1973).

In the mid-1970s, she appeared on the judging panel of the British ITV talent show New Faces.^[3]

During the 1980s, Pitt returned to roles in mainstream films and on television. Her role as Fraulein Baum in the 1981 BBC Playhouse Unity, who is denounced as a Jew by Unity Mitford (played by Lesley-Anne Down, who had played her daughter in Countess Dracula), was uncomfortably close to her real-life experiences. Her popularity with horror film buffs saw her in demand for guest appearances at horror conventions and film festivals. Other films Pitt has appeared in outside the horror genre are: Who Dares Wins, (aka The Final Option), Wild Geese II, and Hanna's War. Generally cast as a 'baddie', she usually manages to get killed horribly at the end of the final reel. "Being the anti-hero is great – they are always roles you can get your teeth into."

It was at this time that the theatre world also beckoned. Pitt founded her own theatrical touring company and starred in successful productions of Dial M for Murder, Duty Free (aka Don't Bother to Dress), and Woman of Straw. She also appeared in many TV shows in the UK and US – Ironside, Dundee and the Culhane, Doctor Who (The Time Monster, Warriors of the Deep), Smiley's People, etc.

Pitt made her return to the big screen in the 2000 production The Asylum. The film starred Colin Baker and Patrick Mower, and was directed by John Stewart. In 2003, Pitt voiced the role of "Lady Violator" in Renga Media's production Dominator. The film was the UK's first CGI animated film.

After a period of illness, Pitt returned to the screen in 2006 for the Hammer Films-Mario Bava tribute, Sea of Dust. In 1998, Pitt narrated Cradle of Filth's "Cruelty and the Beast" album, although her narration was done strictly in-character as the Countess she portrayed in Countess Dracula.

Writing career[link]

Pitt's first book, after a number of ill-fated tracts on the plight of the Native Americans, was a novel, Cuckoo Run, a spy story about mistaken identity. "I took it to Cubby Broccoli. It was about a woman called Nina Dalton who is pursued across South America in the mistaken belief that she is a spy. Cubby said it was a female Bond. He was being very kind."

This was followed in 1984 by a novelisation of the Peron era in Argentina ("The Perons"), where she lived for a number of years; "Argentina was a wild frontier country ruled by a berserk military dictatorship at the time. It just suited my mood."

In 1984, Pitt and her husband Tony Rudlin were commissioned to script a Doctor Who adventure. The story, entitled The Macro Men, was one of a number of ideas submitted by the couple, after she appeared in the season 21 DW story Warriors of the Deep. The plot concerned events surrounding the Philadelphia Experiment – a US military experiment during the Second World War to try to make the naval destroyer USS Eldridge invisible to radar – about which Pitt and Rudlin had read in a book entitled The Philadelphia Experiment by leading paranormal investigator Charles Berlitz. It involved the Doctor, and companion Peri, arriving on board the USS Eldridge in Philadelphia harbour in 1943 and becoming involved in a battle against microscopic humanoid creatures native to Earth but previously unknown to humankind. The writers had several meetings with script editor Eric Saward and carried out numerous revisions, but the story progressed no further than the preparation of a draft first episode script under the new title The Macros. The story has now been made by Big Finish in their Doctor Who: the Lost Stories audios, as The Macros.

In 1999, her autobiography, Life's a Scream (Heinemann) was published, and she was short-listed for the Talkies Awards for her own reading of extracts from the audio book, "I hate being second".

The autobiography detailed the harrowing experiences of her early life in a Nazi Concentration camp, her search throughout the European Red Cross Refugee Camps for her father, and her escape from East Berlin, one step ahead of the Volkspolizei. "I always had a big mouth and used to go on about the political schooling interrupting my quest for thespian glory. I used to think like that. Not good in a police state."

The Bedside Companion for Ghosthunters (Batsfords) was Pitt's tenth book. It was preceded by the Bedside Companion for Vampire Lovers (Batsfords). The Ingrid Pitt Book Of Murder, Torture And Depravity was published in October 2000.

Pitt's credentials for writing about ghosts spring from a time when she lived for a while with a tribe of Indians in Colorado. Sitting with her baby daughter, Steffanie, by a log fire, she was sure that she could see the face of her father smiling at her in the flames. "I told one of the others and he went all Hollywood Injun on me and said something like 'Heap good medicine'. I guess he was taking the mickey."

Other writing projects include a different look at Hammer Films entitled The Hammer Xperience. She also wrote a story under the pen-name Dracula Smith, which was illustrated within the Fan club magazine, and is rumoured to be waiting to be snapped up for production.

Pitt wrote regular columns for various magazines and periodicals, including Shivers magazine, TV & Film Memorabilia and Motoring and Leisure. She also wrote a regular column, often about politics, on her official website, as well as a weekly column at UK website Den of Geek.^[4] In 2008, she was added to the merchandising of Monster-Mania: The Magazine.^[5]

In 2011 Avalard Publishing acquired the reprint rights to Cuckoo Run and four other titles, including Annul Domini a speculative novel about what would have happened if Jesus had never made it to Jerusalem. It's due to be published in 2012.

Personal life[link]

She married three times, first to Laud Roland Pitt Jr, an American GI; second to George Pinches, a British film executive; and then to Tony Rudlin, an actor and racing car driver. Her daughter, Steffanie Pitt-Blake, is also an actress.

Pitt had a passion for World War II aircraft. After revealing her passion on a radio programme, she was invited by the museum at RAF Duxford to have a flight in a Lancaster.^[6] She held a student's pilot licence and a black belt in karate.^[7]

Death[link]

Pitt died in a south London hospital on 23 November 2010, a few days after collapsing, and two days after her 73rd birthday.^[8]

Legacy project[link]

Seven months before she died, Pitt finished narration for "Ingrid Pitt: Beyond the Forest," an animated short film on her experience in the Holocaust, a project that had been in the works for five years. Character design and storyboards were created by two-time Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Bill Plympton. The film is directed by Kevin Sean Michaels; co-produced and co-written by Dr. Jud Newborn, Holocaust expert and author, "Sophie Scholl and the White Rose"; and drawn by 10-year-old animator, Perry Chen. The short film will be completed for release in 2011, with a feature-length documentary, also by Michaels, to follow.^[9][10][11]

Filmography[link]

Bibliography (partial)[link]

• Cuckoo Run (1980)
• The Perons (1984)
• Eva's Spell (1985)
• Katarina (1986)
• The Ingrid Pitt Bedside Companion for Vampire Lovers (1998)
• The Autobiography of Ingrid Pitt : Life's A Scream (1999)
• Ingrid Pitt Bedside Companion for Ghosthunters (1999)
• The Ingrid Pitt Book of Murder, Torture and Depravity (2000)
• Annul Domini (2012)
• Dracula Who...? (2012)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Ingrid Pitt at the Internet Movie Database
• Obituary in The Guardian
• Obituary in The Independent
• Pitt of Horror
• Ingrid Pitt: Beyond The Forest biopic
• Ingrid Pitt at HorrorStars
• Renga Media
• Weekly column at Den Of Geek