Perhaps best known to celebrity connoisseurs as the tragic love of the rebellious James Dean, the beautiful Pier Angeli (1932-1971) had a respectable if unremarkable career in Hollywood during the 50s and 60s. Cult film lovers, of course, adore her for two of her latter day projects.

In fact, Octaman, in which she plays researcher Susan Lowry, has to one of the most amateur, and therefore memorable, eco-monster horrors ever produced while In the Folds of the Flesh, with its overtones of incest, Nazi exploitation and delusional double crossing, is one of the more bizarre and sleazier Euro terrors to emerge in the early 70s.

While Angeli attacks her sensual and murderous Falesse/Ester in Folds with calculated authority, she brought a much more sophisticated sexuality to many of the tunes on her 1959 recording Italia con Pier Angeli. Her take on Luna Rossa is a prime example.

The talented Angeli, who died at 39 of an overdose, has been memorialized, nicely, at http://www.annamariapierangeli.com.

Until the next time – SWEET love and pink GRUE, Big Gay Horror Fan!

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