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Jytte Stensgaard was born on 14 May 1946 in the town of Thisted, in Jutland, Denmark.
She moved to the UK to improve her English in 1963, she worked as an Au Pair, studied Stenography and became a model for a time. She changed her name to the slightly more pronounceable "Yutte" and started her acting career in 1968 in the film "La Ragazza con la Pistola" (English: Girl with a Pistol), an Italian film with British backing.
Roles followed in such diverse TV-series as The Saint (with Roger Moore), On The Buses, Jason King and Doctor in the House, in which she had memorable (but small) guest roles, as well as a larger role in an episode of The Persuaders!, playing a Judo instructor who teams up with Danny Wilde (Tony Curtis).
She also played a larger role in the low-budget sci-fi sex comedy "Zeta One" (1969). Any excuse is a good excuse to (re)watch "Scream and Scream Again" (1970), so even though she may only have a tiny part in it (some of her scenes ended up being cut out of the finished movie), her torture scenes remain a memorable part in a very off beat movie.
She appeared in a Christmas panto in 1970 in "Red Rising Hood" and re-appeared again in theatre in 1971 for a production of the comedy "Boeing, Boeing". She then got a six-month stint hosting a game show with British king of comedy, the late Bob Monkhouse.
Her most famous role however is as the vampire Carmilla/Mircalla in Hammer's "Lust for a Vampire" (1971) being the sequel to "The Vampire Lovers" starring Ingrid Pitt as Mircalla. The original film was an adaptation of Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu, however this film shared little with the novel and only used the vampire characters, and was thus a completely new story, with the semi-lesbian Carmilla infiltrating an all-girl boarding school while falling in love with a novelist. The photo of a nude, blood soaked Stensgaard rising out of a coffin has rightly become an iconic image.
Her last movie role was in Burke and Hare.
She was married to Amicus Art Director Tony Curtis but after that marriage failed, she was involved with lyricist Leslie Bricusse (Goldfinger, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory) – straight out of his marriage with Yvonne Romain - and subsequently married NBC Executive and Producer John Kerwin. She has one son, Sten.
After struggling with myopic casting directors, who could not see the beauty and budding talent before them, and a failed marriage to Kerwin, Yutte finally gave up and emigrated to the USA in the mid-seventies and took up a job selling air time for a Christian radio station in Oregon where she has kept a relatively low profile. She is now the successful National Account Director for Premiere Radio Networks, one of the largest radio networks in the US, owns several pieces of property and is an active supporter of the Republican Party.
After having been out of the public eye for a considerable numbers of years, Stensgaard was rediscovered by chance in 1988 in Los Angeles when she walked into (Little Shoppe of Horror’s correspondent’s) Gary Smith’s travel agency. She initially was very uncomfortable combining her previous modelling career and nude shots with her strong Christian beliefs and refused to talk about her past life. Lately, however, she appears to have been more relaxed about it and even started attending conventions where she is surrounded by fans graceful to discover the re-appearance of one of Hammer’s most seminal Glamour Starlets.
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