Barbara Steele: Career and Impact

Actress and producer Barbara Steele was born on December 29, 1937 in Birkenhead, Cheshire, England.  She was always an artistic child, and pursued painting in art school.  While in school, Steele realized she had an affinity towards acting and in 1957 she joined an acting repertory company.  In 1958 she debuted her acting career in the English film Bachelor of Hearts.  Unfortunately, Steele did not have the innocent "look" that US and UK films sought from women, but while one door closed, another opened.  Her dark, sunken eyes and sharp features may not have been ideal for Hollywood, but they were perfect for the growing film industry in Italy, specifically Italian gothic horror films.  In 1960, Steele finally got her breakout role in the Italian horror film Black Sunday.  From there, she made a real name for herself in the Italian horror community.  Ironically, Barbara Steele never learned how to speak Italian, and her voice was dubbed over in her movies.  She became known as the Italian Scream Queen, but this title served as both an honor and a curse.  After many attempts to break out of the horror genre, Steele found little success returning back to English films.  She was in and out of retirement as well as in and out of jobs for a good chunk of her career.  But that never deterred her, and she smoothly transitioned into the role of producer for a handful of TV series and movies.  She won a Primetime Emmy award for producing the show War and Remembrance (1988-1989).  

During the 1960's and 70's, the second wave of feminism flooded the US and the UK.  Women fought not only for certain rights, but they fought to be respected and seen as more than just an object for men's pleasures.  This was especially true in the film industry at the time, and women got into the habit of using their sexuality to give them power rather than let it be their weakness.

"Women characters were being brought to life in all manner of ways – bold and brazen (without losing any of their femininity) and archly sexual (without their desires becoming their weakness), yet portrayed in such a manner that the men would not get upset – with male audiences tricked into believing that the women were still there just to be eye candy, these characters could take more and more screen time without turning the men off." (Beyond the Void)

 Barbara Steele did just that.  There was no denying or hiding Steele's sex appeal, so she didn't try to hide it.  In each of her roles, she brings a balance of innocence and sexuality that is so purely feminine and powerful.  

"Steele saw her characters as embodying powerful, repressed and subterranean forces erupting into being and threatening the (male, Catholic) status quo, always ultimately destroyed to reassure the spectator who has been enjoying their demonic sprees a little too much" (Cairns and Riccuito 2020)

Steele set the stage for many women who, like her, were forced to be the object of male attention but instead took that power and used it to flip the script.  I personally find it quite ironic that at the start of her career, Steele was known for her beauty, but not her voice.  It seems very symbolic that her voice was dubbed over in her films, similar to how women's voices are overlooked and not listened to in real life.

“I usually played these roles where I represented the dark side. I was always a predatory bitch goddess in all of these movies, and with all kinds of unspeakable elements. Then what is life without a dark side? The driving force of drama is the dark side. These women that I played usually suffered for it, and I guess men like that.”

- Barbara Steele