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Life's A Scream
At the age of five, Ingrid Pitt found herself in a concentration camp. Ingrid and her mother escaped from the guards while on a forced march and presented themselves to the partisans, unsure if they would kill them. They spent the rest of the war in the forests. Ingrid fell in love for the first time and watched in despair as British bombers flew overhead. She still cannot see the vapour trials of planes without being transported back to her childhood vigil. After the war Ingrid came to London, where she developed a career as a Hammer House of Horror movie star, but, as she proundly says, `I was always the biter, never the bitten!' She also acted in mainstream films, such as WHERE EAGLES DARE. She had a child by her first marriage and a grand passion which lead to her marrying a racing driver. They lived in Argentina for a while and were good friends of President Peron and Isabelits Peron. Ingrid even spent an evening with the embalmed body of Eva Peron. Written with great passion and warmth, this is a rare childhood memoir and the story of Hammer`s most galmorous actress. Above all, this is a story of a survivor.
292 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1999
7 people are currently reading
124 people want to read
About the author
Ingrid Pitt
24 books7 followersIngrid Pitt (born Ingoushka Petrov) was a British actress, famous for her work in horror films. She married three times, first to Laud Roland Pitt Jr, an American GI; second to George Pinches, a British film executive; and then to Tony Rudlin, an actor and racing car driver. Her daughter, Steffanie Pitt-Blake, is also an actress.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
January 23, 2022
I have to say that even before this book, I was a big fan of Ingrid Pitt. I knew her through seeing her in the old Hammer horror films from the 1970’s that I love so much. Last year, I rekindled my love for Ingrid by watching these films again, and I bought a poster of her that hangs up in my room. After that, I really wanted to know more about her; who was she, and what was her life story? I got involved in several Facebook groups and managed to befriend several people who knew Ingrid and have told me stories about her. I knew she was in a concentration camp, survived the holocaust, and some of the details of her life, but this book really told me so much more.
I loved Ingrid Pitt before I read this book, now I look up to her after reading this book, and still think she was one of the prettiest women of her time. She didn’t just have beauty, she had brains, and courage. This book was an emotional rollercoaster, and at times I had to pause to process what I was reading; for example, when she mentioned how her grandparents died in Treblinka, or how her half-brother was in the Waffen SS, it was stunning. There were other parts that made me shake my head, like how Orson Welles treated her like garbage, or how her 2nd husband, George Pinches treated her.
The first part of the book really focuses on her life during the Second World War, and her survival in the concentration camps. I have to say, if there were ever two strong women, it was Ingrid, and her mother Matka, because they went days without eating, days enduring suffering, and yet they still hoped they would get out of this. Ingrid and her mother were separated from her father; her father was also a remarkable person, and he resisted the Nazi’s attempts to persuade him to use his expertise to help them in the war. Another shocker was learning that during Ingrid’s time in the camps, she was in a school for children who were to be taught German; these children were to be adopted by “Aryan” couples who couldn’t reproduce, and yet she was never picked. As the war draws to a close, Ingrid and her mother cheated death, and hid out in the forests with partisans until the end of the war. Their war wasn’t just against Nazism, it was also against hunger, and against giving up as Ingrid and her mother spent several years after the war scouring through Poland and Germany, looking for Ingrid’s father. These experiences definitely left an impact on her, and she talks about this.
The book goes through the loss of her father, her early beginning as an actress, and her eventual escape from East Berlin to the United States, and she writes about everything from her Hammer career, to her time in South America, to her grief over her mothers passing. As one goes from page to page, one sees that Ingrid truly lived a life of adventure, always finding a way out of a problem, and always keeping faith in her career. In these 282 pages, I felt I learned so much more about her than I knew beforehand, and I feel like she was a kindred spirit to me in ways. She loved to read books, she loved history much like I do, and she had a unforgettable character that is memorable.
This book is definitely a worthy memoir to read if you love Hammer films, Ingrid Pitt, and/or you want a story about a courageous person who never gave up. If you haven’t seen her films, I recommend you do. I guess you could say her life really was a "Scream".
I loved Ingrid Pitt before I read this book, now I look up to her after reading this book, and still think she was one of the prettiest women of her time. She didn’t just have beauty, she had brains, and courage. This book was an emotional rollercoaster, and at times I had to pause to process what I was reading; for example, when she mentioned how her grandparents died in Treblinka, or how her half-brother was in the Waffen SS, it was stunning. There were other parts that made me shake my head, like how Orson Welles treated her like garbage, or how her 2nd husband, George Pinches treated her.
The first part of the book really focuses on her life during the Second World War, and her survival in the concentration camps. I have to say, if there were ever two strong women, it was Ingrid, and her mother Matka, because they went days without eating, days enduring suffering, and yet they still hoped they would get out of this. Ingrid and her mother were separated from her father; her father was also a remarkable person, and he resisted the Nazi’s attempts to persuade him to use his expertise to help them in the war. Another shocker was learning that during Ingrid’s time in the camps, she was in a school for children who were to be taught German; these children were to be adopted by “Aryan” couples who couldn’t reproduce, and yet she was never picked. As the war draws to a close, Ingrid and her mother cheated death, and hid out in the forests with partisans until the end of the war. Their war wasn’t just against Nazism, it was also against hunger, and against giving up as Ingrid and her mother spent several years after the war scouring through Poland and Germany, looking for Ingrid’s father. These experiences definitely left an impact on her, and she talks about this.
The book goes through the loss of her father, her early beginning as an actress, and her eventual escape from East Berlin to the United States, and she writes about everything from her Hammer career, to her time in South America, to her grief over her mothers passing. As one goes from page to page, one sees that Ingrid truly lived a life of adventure, always finding a way out of a problem, and always keeping faith in her career. In these 282 pages, I felt I learned so much more about her than I knew beforehand, and I feel like she was a kindred spirit to me in ways. She loved to read books, she loved history much like I do, and she had a unforgettable character that is memorable.
This book is definitely a worthy memoir to read if you love Hammer films, Ingrid Pitt, and/or you want a story about a courageous person who never gave up. If you haven’t seen her films, I recommend you do. I guess you could say her life really was a "Scream".
May 13, 2016
Ingrid Pitt survived a harrowing childhood in a concentration camp to become the embodiment of Hammer-glamour in the early 1970s. Even in that one-line description you can see that she has more than enough material for an autobiography. The first section is harrowing, whilst also – incredibly – maintaining a childhood innocence; while the second is a collection of well-worn stories she must have used to pay her way on the convention circuit. Ingrid tells us throughout how much she enjoys writing so I presume she actually wrote it herself. Although it does have the whiff of being narrated giddily to a ghost writer.
However, the best chapter in the book is one just rushed over, It’s a fourteen-page chapter where young Ingrid marries the G.I. who saved her from drowning in a frozen river, moves with him to an army base in Colorado and has a daughter. Her husband (who remains unnamed) starts feeling neglected by the mother/daughter bond and volunteers for Vietnam. Not wanting to be a pining wife at home, Ingrid effectively ends the marriage and joins a terrible travelling theatre company which travels the mid-west and where she never gets paid because the houses are too small. Realising that such a hand to mouth existence isn’t going to last, she does a moonlight flit from her guest house and tries to drive to New York towards a plane back to Europe. However, she gets a puncture and comes to a halt in front of a wrecking yard run by Native Americans. She ends up living there with them for six weeks of meditative tranquility, before the urge to get her daughter back to Europe reasserts itself. Somehow, through saving her pennies, she does get the car to the airport, but once there has no money for plane fare. A group of cab drivers comes to her rescue and helps her spruce the car up so that it looks shiny and newish, and Ingrid is able to sell it to a freshly arrived family of German tourists for $250. Looking up on the board she sees that the next flight to Europe is to Barcelona and slams the money down on the counter to get her and her daughter tickets, and they’re gone within the hour.
As I say, that’s one chapter. One fourteen-page chapter. But clearly there’s enough material there for a novel, a musical and a Coen Brothers movie. It’s incredible and frustrating to read just how rushed the whole thing is.
Obviously true pro that she was, Ingrid gave the public what she thought they wanted – tragic childhood, film star anecdotes, a tale of inner strength and survival – but this reader just wishes she hadn’t gone with the well-polished anecdotes and instead focused on the less well known parts of her life, which sound bloody fascinating.
However, the best chapter in the book is one just rushed over, It’s a fourteen-page chapter where young Ingrid marries the G.I. who saved her from drowning in a frozen river, moves with him to an army base in Colorado and has a daughter. Her husband (who remains unnamed) starts feeling neglected by the mother/daughter bond and volunteers for Vietnam. Not wanting to be a pining wife at home, Ingrid effectively ends the marriage and joins a terrible travelling theatre company which travels the mid-west and where she never gets paid because the houses are too small. Realising that such a hand to mouth existence isn’t going to last, she does a moonlight flit from her guest house and tries to drive to New York towards a plane back to Europe. However, she gets a puncture and comes to a halt in front of a wrecking yard run by Native Americans. She ends up living there with them for six weeks of meditative tranquility, before the urge to get her daughter back to Europe reasserts itself. Somehow, through saving her pennies, she does get the car to the airport, but once there has no money for plane fare. A group of cab drivers comes to her rescue and helps her spruce the car up so that it looks shiny and newish, and Ingrid is able to sell it to a freshly arrived family of German tourists for $250. Looking up on the board she sees that the next flight to Europe is to Barcelona and slams the money down on the counter to get her and her daughter tickets, and they’re gone within the hour.
As I say, that’s one chapter. One fourteen-page chapter. But clearly there’s enough material there for a novel, a musical and a Coen Brothers movie. It’s incredible and frustrating to read just how rushed the whole thing is.
Obviously true pro that she was, Ingrid gave the public what she thought they wanted – tragic childhood, film star anecdotes, a tale of inner strength and survival – but this reader just wishes she hadn’t gone with the well-polished anecdotes and instead focused on the less well known parts of her life, which sound bloody fascinating.
August 3, 2013
I had the very great honour of knowing Ingrid.
I was a fan before I met for the first time - deff a very great fan of the warm, funny, lovely lady after I met her!
This book is a fascinating account of a very unusual life. Full of adventure and sometimes harrowing and quite hard to read.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies.
R.I.P Ingrid! You are Missed!
P.S She told me once that she wanted to call this book FROM S..T TO CHAMPAIGNE but was talked out of it! Lol! That was Ingrid! x
I was a fan before I met for the first time - deff a very great fan of the warm, funny, lovely lady after I met her!
This book is a fascinating account of a very unusual life. Full of adventure and sometimes harrowing and quite hard to read.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies.
R.I.P Ingrid! You are Missed!
P.S She told me once that she wanted to call this book FROM S..T TO CHAMPAIGNE but was talked out of it! Lol! That was Ingrid! x
May 20, 2017
I selected this book because I wanted to learn more about Ingrid Pitt's experiences at Hammer Films ... and she doesn't arrive at that part of her story until the final quarter of the book. Even when she does talk about her experiences with the famous horror films she made there (and at Amicus), she relates anecdotes more than a more studied overview filled with in-depth stories of the people there.
So, why a five star rating? Because her life was truly fascinating and her observations caused me to reflect on how I am living my life.
Much of the book details her experiences living confined in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. You want a horror story? There it is. Although I've read a number of camp survivor books, I don't believe I've read one from a child's perspective. No feeling of security ... a constant sense of pain or sickness or discomfort ... and executions of people you know on a regular basis. I cannot even imagine that.
Ingrid Pitt was known among horror fans not only for being extremely attractive and sexy, but also for her no-nonsense attitude toward condescending attitudes and highly emotional (if not eccentric) behavior. Considering the impact of her childhood experiences on her psyche, this is now completely understandable. (She also developed an aversion to any reminders of the Nazis, which made working on the movie WHERE EAGLES DARE a challenging prospect.)
Actress, artist, writer and survivor, she could truly be considered a Renaissance woman. So, I paid attention when she said that despite all of her professional achievements, valuing love from and for others was the most important lesson learned.
Her amusing anecdotes are rich, fun, and full of meaning. I gained a lot as a person from her story ... considerably more than I had expected. I highly recommend this one.
So, why a five star rating? Because her life was truly fascinating and her observations caused me to reflect on how I am living my life.
Much of the book details her experiences living confined in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. You want a horror story? There it is. Although I've read a number of camp survivor books, I don't believe I've read one from a child's perspective. No feeling of security ... a constant sense of pain or sickness or discomfort ... and executions of people you know on a regular basis. I cannot even imagine that.
Ingrid Pitt was known among horror fans not only for being extremely attractive and sexy, but also for her no-nonsense attitude toward condescending attitudes and highly emotional (if not eccentric) behavior. Considering the impact of her childhood experiences on her psyche, this is now completely understandable. (She also developed an aversion to any reminders of the Nazis, which made working on the movie WHERE EAGLES DARE a challenging prospect.)
Actress, artist, writer and survivor, she could truly be considered a Renaissance woman. So, I paid attention when she said that despite all of her professional achievements, valuing love from and for others was the most important lesson learned.
Her amusing anecdotes are rich, fun, and full of meaning. I gained a lot as a person from her story ... considerably more than I had expected. I highly recommend this one.
August 31, 2016
Despite its unfortunate brevity, this is a well-written, brilliantly told autobiographical account of the Hammer beauty's childhood in a Nazi concentration camp, her doggedly determined rise to cinema stardom in at least five different languages, and finally her years with Hammer studios (for which she is probably best remembered).
December 28, 2023
I do like Ingrid Pitt, although she didn't have a very prolific screen career, but I think she adds a certain presence to every film she's in. And I was lucky enough to meet her at a fan convention back in the 1990s, where she was charming. This autobiography starts off on a strong footing, with an excellent depiction of the star's tumultuous WW2 upbringing. However, I found that it got less and less interesting as it went on; the horror material, which we're all craving as her fans, is glossed over and there's far too much made of unsuccessful escapades in Argentina towards the end, which I felt made it drag a little.
July 25, 2021
I wanted to read this book ever since it was published in 1999 when I heard a radio interview with Ingrid Pitt, because she clearly had a very eventful early life. Perhaps after waiting over 20 years it's inevitable that the book didn't live up to my expectations - many of the episodes are frustratingly short on detail. Nevertheless her journey from concentration camp, through postwar Berlin to struggling actor are absolutely fascinating. It's clear she must have been a very determined person to make it in the film industry at a time when women were treated appallingly.
December 11, 2021
This book is a very well written rollercoaster of experiences and emotions. Ingrid laid herself bare in this book, warts and all. Her love for her family and her resilience in the face of, in some instances, unimaginable suffering, comes through loud and clear without becoming sappy or sanctimonious. She lived her life to the full and was never afraid to stick her neck on the line for something she really believed in.
May 12, 2011
Whenever some famous person that I find interesting passes away, I often get a desire to read up on them. Although her acting career stretched across many decades, I primarily remember Ingrid Pitt as a middle-aged hottie who played bad girls and vampires in 1970's horror films. Born in Poland to a German father and Polish Jewish mother, Pitt had the misfortune of spending her formative years in a Nazi concentration camp. Through pluck and luck, she managed to survive the Nazis. After the war, Ingrid decided she wanted to be an actress. However, the East German commies didn't like her anti-commie opinions. Fleeing arrest, she fell into a river and almost drowned. A U.S. soldier, Major Pitt, pulled her out of the river. She married him 6 months later and soon became pregnant with her only child. Through luck and hard work Ingrid eventually found work in the film industry. As mentioned earlier, horror films would be her career mainstay. Pitt discusses her three marriages, shares her motherly worries, introduces us to international political and film celebrities, and has a great time speaking her mind. Last November, Ingrid Pitt passed away. At her passing, her daughter Steffanie said she wanted her mother to be remembered "as the Countess Dracula with the wonderful teeth and the wonderful bosom." RIP.
November 29, 2014
The second part of this book is standard fare for a movie star's autobiography, complete with the name-dropping tales, found here, for example, in stories how Pitt played cards with John Wayne, rode motorbikes with Clint Eastwood, and practiced Karate with Elvis. But it is the first part of her story that sets this apart, and what a story too.
A childhood coinciding with World War Two, and a Europe being consumed in madness, some of her memories are harrowing, culminating in the years in which she was imprisoned by the Nazis in a concentration camp. She got away, along with her mother, by escaping into the forest when they were being marched to be killed by a firing squad. There they lived with partisans as the Red Army approached. From the memories of a child caught up in the midst of death and much cruelty, it is the strength of her mother that comes across, an unwavering strength demonstrated in how she protected her child, with an endurance she discovered because of her child, and together they somehow came out the other side.
More than the usual tell-all Hollywood stories, Pitt's is a remarkable story of overcoming the odds in one of the darkest chapters of man's history.
A childhood coinciding with World War Two, and a Europe being consumed in madness, some of her memories are harrowing, culminating in the years in which she was imprisoned by the Nazis in a concentration camp. She got away, along with her mother, by escaping into the forest when they were being marched to be killed by a firing squad. There they lived with partisans as the Red Army approached. From the memories of a child caught up in the midst of death and much cruelty, it is the strength of her mother that comes across, an unwavering strength demonstrated in how she protected her child, with an endurance she discovered because of her child, and together they somehow came out the other side.
More than the usual tell-all Hollywood stories, Pitt's is a remarkable story of overcoming the odds in one of the darkest chapters of man's history.
September 15, 2016
I had the very great honour of knowing Ingrid.
I was a fan before I met for the first time - deff a very great fan of the warm, funny, lovely lady after I met her!
This book is a fascinating account of a very unusual life. Full of adventure and sometimes harrowing and quite hard to read.
I would recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading autobiographies.
R.I.P Ingrid! You are Missed!
P.S She told me once that she wanted to call this book FROM S..T TO CHAMPAIGNE but was talked out of it! Lol! That was Ingrid
August 28, 2016
A large part of actress Ingrid Pitt's autobiography tells of her time spent in a Nazi concentration camp as a child. This section of the book is so well written & becomes so involving that I almost forgot I was reading a book about the life of an actress. Pitt covers her varied career in the theatre, television & film industry in less detail than I would have liked, but this is a still a very good read nonetheless.
March 31, 2015
Wow. An amazing and full life in two parts. Although I never got to meet Ingrid personally I did work with a friend of hers for a while and spoke in the phone on the odd occasion, they'd lunch when shed come to town for conventions - our company even doing some work for Steffie along the way.
April 28, 2016
Great autobiography from an Actress whose life was more interesting than some of the movies she starred in. RIP Ingrid...
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