In Part One of The Women of Hammer Films (Click Here) we covered four of the legendary actress to appear in Hammer movies, including Veronica Carlson and Caroline Munro. In this next installment, we cover four more ladies to appear in the storied franchise’s horror and fantasy movies: Martine Beswick, Valerie Leon, Marie Devereux, and Edina Ronay.
Marie Devereux
Patricia Sutcliffe was born in London on November 27, 1940 to a Belgian father and a Spanish mother. At the age of 15, she began to model for men’s magazines. Shortly after this she became friendly with actor Michael Caine. Caine introduced her to the famous British nude model photographer George Harrison Marks. He changed Sutcliffe’s name to Marie Devereux and photographed her many times; so many that she earned the nickname “The Countess of Cleavage”.
“Photographers and artists liked my looks and figure but physical attributes are only useful if you treat them as a means to a more serious end. In my case, I wanted desperately to become an actress.”
– Marie Devereux
In 1958, Devereux appeared in bit roles in three horror films: The Woman Eater, I Only Asked, and The Haunted Strangler (the latter two by Hammer Films). Next, she appeared in Terrence Young’s Serious Charge (1959) and the comedy Surprise Package the following year.
Her next role would be her most well-remembered; a vampiric village girl in The Brides of Dracula. At this point in her moviemaking career, Devereux was growing tired of these minor, sexy roles. She felt discouraged that she wasn’t landing juicier parts. The fact that they misspelled her last name in the credits didn’t help either.
She made a few more movies over the next couple of years but her most notable film experience was as Elizabeth Taylor’s body double in Cleopatra (1963), which was shot on location in Rome.
From this, she made her way to Hollywood, where she made Shock Corridor(1963) and The Naked Kiss (1964), which would be her final film role. She retired from acting after filming completed to get married and become a housewife. Devereux passed away in Meridian, Idaho, on December 30, 2019.
Valerie Leon
Valerie Leon was born in London, England on November 12, 1943. She attended a private school with her three siblings. In her late teens, she accepted a job at Harrods department store in the Knightsbridge neighborhood of London.
In 1966, Leon auditioned for, and received, the role of a chorus girl in the popular West End production of Funny Girl starring Barbara Streisand. Following this play, Leon appeared in several TV series. These included The Saint, The Avengers, The Persuaders, and Up Pompeii!
Leon’s largest movie role was in Hammer’s Blood From The Mummy’s Tomb, which was plagued with problems in production; namely the death of the director Seth Holt during filming. Also Peter Cushing dropping out of the production on the first day of filming because his wife was diagnosed with emphysema. Leon recalls:
“Without a doubt (the movie was “cursed”). First of all Peter Cushing should have been on it, and his wife got so terribly ill just after we had done a days shooting. Then I heard that a young man from the arts department died on his motor bike, which I don’t think is generally known. And then, of course, Seth. At the time I never knew that he had been quite ill right from the start. They wouldn’t insure him because he had a weak heart. I just thought he might be great drinker. When he died a week before completion of the movie, I was totally devastated. I still have this image of him in certain scenes, bending over and looking at me very carefully before we went for a take.”
Leon had minor roles in several movies including the James Bond films Never Say Never Again (1983) and The Spy Who Love Me (1977). She also appeared in six of the “Carry On” movies, an English comedy series, as well as Revenge Of The Pink Panther with Peter Sellers, and The Italian Job with Michael Caine. Her other notable role was appearing in popular commercials as a sex-crazed vixen who would lose her self-control, attacking any man wearing Hai Karate cologne, no matter what they looked like.
Leon was married to English TV producer Michael Mills from 1974 until his death in 1988.
Edina Ronay
Edina Ronay was born in Budapest, Hungary in January 1943. At the completion of World War II, her family immigrated to England where her father Egon eventually became a renowned food critic across the British Isles.
Ronay began to appear in movies and television in the early 1960s, with appearances in the television series The Avengers as well as an uncredited appearance in The Beatles’ movie A Hard Day’s Night (1964).
In 1965, Ronay had a major role in the Peter Rogers and Gerald Thomas comedy The Big Job. They were the masterminds of the British “Carry On” movie comedy series. A few months later she appeared in another of their movies, Carry On Cowboy (1965), with Ronay being described as “the next Brigitte Bardot.”
The following year, Ronay was cast in Hammer’s Prehistoric Women aka Slave Girls (1967). She received second billing in the movie behind Martine Beswick, with whom she developed a close friendship with.
Ronay continued acting throughout the rest of the 1960s into the mid-70s, appearing in such films as Three (1969) and The Swordsman (1974). After completing The Swordsman, Ronay retired from acting to work as a fashion designer.
Martine Beswick
Martine Beswick was born in Port Antonio, Jamaica on September 26, 1941. Her father was English and her mother was Portuguese-Jamaican. In 1954, her parents separated and she moved to London with her mother and sister.
In 1962, Beswick auditioned for the “Photographer” part in Dr. No, but missed out on the role. The following year she appeared in From Russia With Love as Zora, the gyspy. The catfight she had in that movie earned her the nickname “Battling Beswick” on the set. Terrance Young, the director of that movie enjoyed working with her so much, he cast her as James Bond’s assistant Paula Caplan in Thunderball (1965).
Beswick’s first foray into the world of Hammer was in One Million Years B.C. (1966) with Raquel Welch. Shot in the Canary Islands, Beswick began a relationship with and married the movie’s leading man John Richardson (they divorced in 1973). A second movie was planned before this one had even wrapped in order to recycle the costumes and sets. It would star Beswick and was titled Prehistoric Women (1967).
“We took it (Prehistoric Women) seriously insofar as we went at it full tilt, but we knew it wouldn’t be award winning. We had a lot of fun between takes.”
– Martine Beswick
In 1967, Beswick and Richardson moved to L.A. and she started to get roles on television throughout the rest of the 1960s, and well into the 1980s, including The Fall Guy, Fantasy Island, Mannix, and The Six Million Dollar Man. She also acted in Oliver Stone’s directorial debut Seizure (1974).
In 1971, she returned to England for a vacation and ended up being cast in Hammer’s Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1972). There was tension on the set of this movie as Hammer was pushing for nudity that wasn’t in the script.
“(Director) Roy (Ward Baker) and I stopped speaking for a while and then I turned around and said ‘This is silly, let’s just stop this.’ So I agreed to strip off for the scene where Sister Hyde is revealed.”
– Martine Beswick
Beswick moved back to England and essentially retired from acting in the 1990s. She did appear in a “Bond Girl” episode of Masterchef in 2013, as well as the horror movie House of the Gorgon (2018), appearing alongside with other Hammer actresses, Caroline Munro and Veronica Carlson.
