Belinda Lee(1935-1961)
- Actress
Green-eyed blonde bombshell Belinda Lee was born in Devon, England
to florist Stella Mary Graham and hotel owner Robert Esmond Lee on
June 15, 1935. Nicknamed "Billie," she was an incredible beauty while
still a teen attending the Rookesbury Park Prep School in Hampshire and
St. Margaret's boarding school in Devon. Expressing an avid interest in
acting, she focused on dramatics at the Tudor Arts Academy at Surrey
(1947), then gained entry via a scholarship to London's RADA, at which
she made her stage debut in "Point of Departure."
Sharp-faced Belinda was noticed by Rank Studio director
Val Guest while performing at the Nottingham Playhouse.
She was artificially groomed in starlet parts, the first being
The Runaway Bus (1954), until Guest
helped her obtain a movie contract with Rank and introduced her
to one of Rank's prime still photographers,
Cornel Lucas. That year she married the much-older Lucas, who
helped promote her as a sex goddess with thousands of glamorous
photographs.
Belinda was promoted as a docile young beauty, but her parts grew
sexier. She worked intently in films but became frustrated with being
stereotyped as a buxom peroxide blonde. Boxed in as a second-string
Diana Dors, she played a sensuous foil to
Benny Hill in
Who Done It? (1956) and was served
up as sexy window-dressing opposite both
John Gregson in
Miracle in Soho (1957) and
Louis Jourdan in
Dangerous Exile (1957).
Now estranged from Lucas, Belinda headed off to Italy for a change of pace
and atmosphere but only found more of the temptress roles she tried to
avoid--Aphrodite, Messalina, and Lucrezia Borgia--in low-budget spectacles.
She also became preoccupied with married men, one being Prince Filippo
Orsini, whose position with the Vatican led to a major scandal. This
particular turbulent romance and a dissipating relationship with the Rank
Studio (her last picture for the studio was
Elephant Gun (1958)
with Michael Craig) triggered a near-fatal suicide attempt with pills
in January 1958. She later divorced Lucas and continued her torrid affair
with Prince Orsini, then others.
It all ended much too soon for the 25-year-old when she decided to join
her current love, the much-older Italian playboy/journalist/film
producer Gualtiero Jacopetti, on a trip to Las Vegas, where he was working
on a documentary
(Women of the World (1963). While she, Jacopetti, and co-producer
Paolo Cavara were auto passengers on their
way to Los Angeles from Vegas, their driver lost control of their
speeding car and flipped. The 25-year-old actress was thrown from the
car and died of a fractured skull and broken neck. The other three
escaped with fairly minor injuries. She was cremated in the States and her
ashes were eventually returned to Rome and placed in the Campo Cestio
Cemetery.
to florist Stella Mary Graham and hotel owner Robert Esmond Lee on
June 15, 1935. Nicknamed "Billie," she was an incredible beauty while
still a teen attending the Rookesbury Park Prep School in Hampshire and
St. Margaret's boarding school in Devon. Expressing an avid interest in
acting, she focused on dramatics at the Tudor Arts Academy at Surrey
(1947), then gained entry via a scholarship to London's RADA, at which
she made her stage debut in "Point of Departure."
Sharp-faced Belinda was noticed by Rank Studio director
Val Guest while performing at the Nottingham Playhouse.
She was artificially groomed in starlet parts, the first being
The Runaway Bus (1954), until Guest
helped her obtain a movie contract with Rank and introduced her
to one of Rank's prime still photographers,
Cornel Lucas. That year she married the much-older Lucas, who
helped promote her as a sex goddess with thousands of glamorous
photographs.
Belinda was promoted as a docile young beauty, but her parts grew
sexier. She worked intently in films but became frustrated with being
stereotyped as a buxom peroxide blonde. Boxed in as a second-string
Diana Dors, she played a sensuous foil to
Benny Hill in
Who Done It? (1956) and was served
up as sexy window-dressing opposite both
John Gregson in
Miracle in Soho (1957) and
Louis Jourdan in
Dangerous Exile (1957).
Now estranged from Lucas, Belinda headed off to Italy for a change of pace
and atmosphere but only found more of the temptress roles she tried to
avoid--Aphrodite, Messalina, and Lucrezia Borgia--in low-budget spectacles.
She also became preoccupied with married men, one being Prince Filippo
Orsini, whose position with the Vatican led to a major scandal. This
particular turbulent romance and a dissipating relationship with the Rank
Studio (her last picture for the studio was
Elephant Gun (1958)
with Michael Craig) triggered a near-fatal suicide attempt with pills
in January 1958. She later divorced Lucas and continued her torrid affair
with Prince Orsini, then others.
It all ended much too soon for the 25-year-old when she decided to join
her current love, the much-older Italian playboy/journalist/film
producer Gualtiero Jacopetti, on a trip to Las Vegas, where he was working
on a documentary
(Women of the World (1963). While she, Jacopetti, and co-producer
Paolo Cavara were auto passengers on their
way to Los Angeles from Vegas, their driver lost control of their
speeding car and flipped. The 25-year-old actress was thrown from the
car and died of a fractured skull and broken neck. The other three
escaped with fairly minor injuries. She was cremated in the States and her
ashes were eventually returned to Rome and placed in the Campo Cestio
Cemetery.