Hazel Court, Ultimate Scream Queen, Dies at 82

It's quite likely you saw this red-headed woman in The Raven or Devil Girl from Mars. Maybe you saw her in Omen III: The Final Conflict, The Man Who Could Cheat Death, or even The Curse of Frankenstein. Or perhaps you caught her when she was performing in a television show. However it was that you saw her, you realized her beauty and intrigue as she graced the screen.

Court was presented with the SOFFIA award at the 10^th annual International Festival of Fantastic Films in 1999 commemorating her work. This award came 53 years after Court had appeared in her first film, Champagne Charlie in 1944.

Court was born in Birmingham England on the 10^th of February 1926. While the majority of the films and television shows she had appeared in were of the horror genre, Court made many different films and even appeared in episodes of westerns like Bonanza.

Hazel Court was married twice - first to the English actor Dermot Walsh with whom she had a daughter, Sally Walsh. Her daughter appeared with her in the film The Curse of Frankenstein. , and then later she married Don Taylor, an American actor-director. With Taylor, she had a son. In 1964, Court retired from the movie business to pursue life as a wife and mother.

Even in her later years, Court received hundreds of letters from her fans. She would reply to every letter according to her daughter Sally in an Associated Press article.

In addition to acting and responding to fan mail, Hazel Court also enjoyed sculpting and painting. Her sculptures and paintings have been showcased in numerous galleries from San Francisco to Italy.

Moreover, Court wrote her own autobiography, to be released by Tomahawk Press in November. I'm sure this work will be fascinating, considering Hazel Court worked with acting greats such as Vincent Price, Christopher Lee, Boris Karloff, Peter Cushing, Peter Lorre, and Anton Diffring. She worked under Alfred Hitchcock whom she referred to in one interview as possibly not liking actors - at least when she was working with him. Later, she and her husband Don Taylor befriended the director.

While Court has passed on, she leaves behind a legacy of great horror films, paving the way for other women starring in horror flicks. While Neve Campbell and Jennifer Love Hewitt had their run in the Scream and I know what you did Last Summer films, Court stared in the films that defined the horror genre.