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July 12, 2010
Sexy Madeline Smith (Phwooar!) recalls glamour of Hammer | BBC NEWS | Entertainment
Entertainment correspondent, BBC News
Madeline Smith in a publicity shot from Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974)Hammer horror films made stars of actors like Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, but some of the most iconic images from the Hammer era are of the glamorous actresses who appeared alongside them.
Madeline Smith was a familiar face on TV and in films in the 1970s.
Often cast in comic roles in shows like The Two Ronnies and Doctor at Large, she appeared in three Hammer horrors - Taste the Blood of Dracula, The Vampire Lovers and Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell.
She also appeared in Roger Moore's first outing as James Bond in Live and Let Die, and alongside Frankie Howerd in the Up Pompeii film.
The actress, now aged 60, features on the front cover of a new book by Hammer historian Marcus Hearn that celebrates two decades of Hammer glamour.
Here, Madeline Smith recalls her Hammer heyday and her time as a Bond girl.
That's a striking front cover photograph - what do you remember about it?
What I remember is hating that dress. I thought, 'I can't wear that - what on earth am I going to wear under it?'
I have no idea where we were, on a set or a commercial, it certainly wasn't a Hammer film. I remember being photographed in that, and I remember pulling these terrible expressions.
I used to get rung up from time to time by these photographers. Mostly they came along and took photographs of me on my bed in my bedroom.
What's your earliest memory of Hammer?
Taste the Blood of Dracula - wonderful - we made it in 1969. For that one I did audition, and was beyond joy to get the part.
I had secretly yearned to be in one of these horror films, but because I was so innocent, gormless and untried in every sense I had no idea what a bordello scene was, or why I was in that extraordinary little outfit... but I knew how to pull gormless faces.
Shortly after, I was given the part in The Vampire Lovers.
The Vampire Lovers was a much more adult direction for Hammer in 1970...
I have to remind you of my previous remark about being completely gormless and innocent - we've only moved on about three months.
I got a very worried phone call from the producer who said he was concerned about my lack of bosom. He said 'we like you a lot, but we don't think you are voluptuous enough'.
I reassured him, and then I scuttled off to Hornby and Clarke dairy round the corner and I bought every yoghurt I could find and stuffed myself like you might fatten cattle, and it worked!
As you see [motions to book cover], need I say more?
Looking back at films like The Vampire Lovers, do you feel you were exploited?
I was a very willing exploitee - I didn't mind at all. My main point of existence is to make people laugh and I was able to use those bosoms later for comedy, I was the foil in a lot of comedy shows and sketches and I have absolutely no regret about being 'sexploited'.
Others I know take against it. I didn't mind looking womanly, that's not ever been concern of mine - but it is for others, and good for them.
Madeline Smith appeared in a spoof classic serial on The Two Ronnies show in 1971Did you get much fan reaction when the films came out?
There was no great marketing machine or PR in those days. You did your photo session, but there were no videos or DVDs in those days. Your fan base was actually very small.
A lot of these films crept out with no premiere and because Hammer was very, very, very low budget there were no first nights. It's really TV that's brought about my fan base. It's wonderful - I'm ancient now and I've got far more fans and far more mail than I ever had.
Do you watch yourself on DVD?
Somebody sent me Taste The Blood Of Dracula and I thought it was a really good film. I'm a bit embarrassed about my scene. I know what was going on inside my head at the time - which wasn't much.
Let's have a look at some other pictures of you in the book.
There's another one from the same session as the front cover - and you can see how cold I am... [fixes me with her eyes, and laughs] Am I being dreadfully rude?
You were in the Bond film Live and Let Die? Isn't that the one when Roger Moore undoes your zip with his magnetic watch?
I loved that scene and I love him. I made the Bond in January 1973. I think that was the first scene that Roger shot in his new go at Bond.
I'd already had a part in The Persuaders with him and Tony Curtis - and I've been told since that he suggested me for the part in the Bond.
I don't even remember auditioning. And suddenly there I am shooting it with that divine being. He'd cut his hair off and lost a lot of weight by the time he was Bond. I think he looked smashing.
Hammer is making films again - would you like to be in a future movie?
If I felt at home with it - yes. But I don't want to play an old lady. I was more of an ingénue. I had a very slight talent and was incredibly lucky. I fear If I try to stretch it further than it will stretch it'll bounce back on me. So the answer is yes, with reservations. I am no Maggie Smith or Judi Dench. It's been a long time now for me.
Hammer Glamour (Titan Books) by Marcus Hearn is out now. The Hammer Festival exhibition at Idea Generation Gallery runs 28 Oct - 15 November.
via news.bbc.co.uk
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Madeline Smith Biography
Madeline Smith
(*August 2, 1949)
Maddy, Madeline or even Madeleine Smith. All three versions of her first name appear in Hammer literature, sometimes even inconsistently in one and the same article. For the sake of continuity I will stick to the most appropriate one: Madeline.
Anyone who thinks that the cult of being a celebrity just for celebrity’s sake (read: the likes of Jordan or Paris Hilton) was something recent, needs only to look at Madeline Smith’s career. Though she’s one of the ladies who managed the Hammer/Bond (Live and Let Die)/Carry On (Matron) hattrick, only Hammer – the studio that discovered her with Taste the Blood of Dracula - really took full advantage of her status and wrote reasonably large parts for her in The Vampire Lovers, the wet dream for Hammer Glamour lovers, and as the mute girl Angel in Frankenstein and the Monster From Hell. In most other movies she gets very little exposure and – taking all her non-Hammer feature performances together – you’d be hard pressed to get enough screen time to fill 2 hours. It is quite clear that even in her Hammer movies she is not exactly hired for her acting talent as her voice is dubbed in the The Vampire Lovers or mute in Monster from Hell.
For a period in the early 70s, however, Smith consistently appeared in photos in the press and managed to raise many a male heartbeat with her innocent looking English Rose doll face combined with a general disregard for clothing. In actual fact, she was so popular during that time that comic strip artist J. Edward Oliver regularly featured her and her talents in his ongoing series of strips. He once even designed an entire one-page comic about "The Life and Habits of the Madeline Smith". When Smith finally complained about her portrayal, Oliver stopped drawing her… but not before drawing a final farewell strip about the call he received from her.
Born in Hartfield (Sussex), she was discovered while working in a boutique and hired to perform a striptease in a London play. Interesting career path for a former convent school girl.
She was married to actor David Buck (The Mummy’s Shroud) who passed away from cancer at the age of 53.
She also played the character of Mollie on stage in Agatha Christie’s Mousetrap.
Away from Hammer, Smith’s other notable genre appearances were in Theatre of Blood and Silent Night, Deadly Night. She was more prominently featured in a string of typical British sex comedies that often gave her a chance to show off her ample physique and also starred fellow Hammer Girl Julie Ege: Up Pompeii, The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins and Percy’s Progress. She also appeared in Up The Front and The Bawdy Adventures of Tom Jones.
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