Sheila Keith

Sheila Keith was a Scottish stage and screen actress who became best known for the cult horror films she made with director Pete Walker. Born to Scottish parents in London and raised in Aberdeen, she trained at the Webber Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art. Her stage work ranged from repertory at the Bristol Old Vic and Pitlochry to West End appearances in Present Laughter, Mame with Ginger Rogers and Deathtrap, while television roles included Mrs Cornet in Crossroads from 1967, The Pallisers, Dear Ladies and the Reverend Mother Stephen in Bless Me, Father. In Walker's films, among them Frightmare (1974), House of Mortal Sin (1976), The Comeback (1978) and House of the Long Shadows (1983), she played sinister and deranged women, among them an elderly cannibal and a one eyed housekeeper. The Times called her a British horror icon, and her last role came in Dr. Terrible's House of Horrible in 2001.