Female Vampire Movie Stars of the 90s

Every good vampire movie almost requires a handsome male lead or a sexy female to serve as his victim or as the vampire. The 90's had a surprising number of vampire movies in which the females who were vampires were stars known for far different roles. Some of the female vampire stars landed a better role in the 2000's and their portrayal of a vampiress was largely forgotten. These are the vampire movies of the 90's with actresses who were or would become known for other, less blood sucking, parts.

1990 Vampire Movies
Red Blooded American Girl
In Red Blooded American Girl, Heather Thomas is not born a vampire. Her character Paula Bukowsky volunteers to be a subject in a life-extending experiment which infects her with a virus producing vampiristic side effects.

Heather Thomas was sought for her beauty and sex appeal in the 80's. In 1982, she was the telekinetic main character's love interest in the teen comedy Zapped! She is best known for the 112 episodes she did as Jody Banks. Banks was a stuntwoman and assistant bounty hunter to Lee Majors in the 1981 to1986 TV series The Fall Guy. A 1986 car-pedestrian accident left her with injuries to both legs. The following year, she played the part of Marilyn Monroe in the TV movie Hoover vs. The Kennedys: The Second Civil War. Her last movie was in 1998 but she has appeared on television since then. In 2008, her novel Trophies was released by HarperCollins.

1994 Vampire Movies
Interview With the Vampire
This movie adapted from Anne Rice's novel is one of the outstanding vampire movies of the 90's and has Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt playing the parts of vampires in it.

Playing Claudia, Pitt's love interest in this movie, is Kirsten Dunst. She won a Saturn Award, a Boston Society of Film Critics Award, a Chicago Film Critics Association Award, and a Young Star Award and was nominated for a Golden Globe for this role. She may also be recognized as Mary Jane Watson in the Spiderman movies, the title character in Marie Antoinette (2006), Claire Colburn in Elizabethtown (2005), and schoolgirl Betty Warren in Mona Lisa Smile (2003). Her first uncredited role at the age of seven was in 1989's New York Stories.

1995 Vampire Movies
Here Come the Munsters
This is the next to last film adaptation of the 1960's cult classic comedy The Munsters. Although both Yvonne DeCarlo and Al Lewis, Lily Munster and Grandpa in the original series, appear in a cameo, it is as part of a family being served by Herman Munster in a restaurant. A new Lily and Grandpa, played by Veronica Hamel and Robert Morse, star in this movie.

Veronica Hamel had an uncredited role in the 1971 detective movie Klute starring Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland. Ten years later, she reprised the role of Jennifer North in the TV movie Jacqueline Susann's Valley of the Dolls, a part originally portrayed by the late Sharon Tate in 1967. That same year, Hamel became a regular on the award-winning police series Hill Street Blues. She received nominations five years in a row for her performance as Joyce Davenport on that show. Her last acting role was in a television episode of Lost. In 1991 and 1992 she was co-executive producer for two television movies.

From Dusk Til Dawn
In this movie, Salma Hayek plays the role of a vampire stripper named Santanico Pandemonium in a bar close to the Mexican border.

Salma Hayek had her start in television in 1988. She is one of the most photographed actresses in the 2000's. Hayek was nominated for several awards including a Screen Actors Guild Award, a Golden Globe, a Critics Choice Award, and an Oscar for her performance in the biography of artist Frida Kahlo, Frida in 2002. She acted in the television series Ugly Betty from 2006 to 2007 in the role of Sofia Reyes and on 30 Rock in 2009 as Elisa.

Deadly Love
Susan Dey was well known in the 70's as the teenage Laurie Partridge on the TV show The Partridge Family (1970-1974). In a radical reversal of her teen idol image, Dey played the lead role of a emotionally disturbed young mother who abuses her baby in 1977's Mary Jane Harper Cried Last Night. She followed that with several TV movies until 1986 when she landed the part of District Attorney Grace Van Owen on the TV series L.A. Law. This ran from 1986 to 1992 and earned Dey nominations for an Emmy three years in a row (1987-1989), nominations for a Golden Globe (1989-1992), and one Golden Globe win in 1988. Her last film or TV work was for two episodes of Third Watch in 2004. In the TV movie Deadly Love, Dey is a fashion photographer with fangs and a problem romance.

The Addiction
Lili Taylor began her acting career in 1986 when she was nineteen years old in a small part in one episode of the TV series Crime Story. Her longest running television roles have been those of Hildy Baker in Deadline from 2000 to 2001, Lisa Kimmel Fisher in Six Feet Under from 2002 to 2005, and therapist Dr. Ann Bellowes in in 2007. In this movie, Taylor is a philosophy major at New York University utilizing the people in her surroundings as her next meal.

1998 Vampire Movies
John Carpenter's Vampires
Sheryl Lee made one of her longest lasting impressions in 1990's off beat cult classic television series Twin Peaks. She not only allowed herself to be shrink-wrapped as the corpse of Laura Palmer but also played the role of Madeleine 'Maddy' Ferguson, Laura's look-alike cousin. Sheryl Lee played a small role, that of Andrea Smithson Darling in thirteen episodes of the short-lived TV series Dirty Sexy Money (2007-2009). In Carpenter's movie, Lee plays the part of Katrina, one of the prostitutes hired to help celebrate a vampire-slaying team's latest victory. She is bitten by Valek, the head vampire, and becomes one herself.

1999 Vampire Movies
Cold Hearts
Marisa Ryan is the lead female vampire, Viktoria, who attempts to keep her vampire friend Alicia, played by Amy Jo Johnson, alive whatever way she can.

One of Marisa Ryan's longest running roles was that of Elizabeth Cooper McGillis on the television comedy series Major Dad from 1989 to 1993. She was nominated two years in a row for a Young Artist Award for that role.

Amy Jo Johnson had an early boost to her career when she played the part of The Pink Ranger aka Kimberley Ann Hart on the television show and the movie version of Mighty Morphin Power Rangers from 1993 to 1995 and again in the 1997 movie sequel. After Cold Hearts, Johnson had longer-running roles in the television series Felicity (1998-2002), The Division (2004), Wildfire (2005-2007), and Flashpoint (2008-2009). In the latter series, she played Julianna "Jules" Callaghan, a female sharpshooter on an all-male special tactical team.

Sources:
Melton, J. Gordon. Video Hound's Vampires on Video. Visible Ink Press, 1997.
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