R.I.P. Veronica Carlson – Hammer horror star has passed away at 77

Veronica Carlson only had 25 screen credits to her name, but a large percentage of those credits were in horror films, including three Hammer Films classics that allowed her to share the screen with genre legends Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing. Sadly, we lost Lee and Cushing years ago, and now we’ve lost Carlson as well. Her daughter, Carly Love, confirmed to The Hollywood Reporter that she passed away of natural causes at her home in Bluffton, South Carolina on Sunday. She was 77.

Carlson was born on September 18, 1944, in Yorkshire, England, and made her screen debut in the 1967 James Bond spoof Casino Royale. She was soon noticed by Hammer executive Jimmy Carreras, who had her audition for the company. She ended up being cast in Dracula Has Risen From the Grave, where she played the niece of a clergyman who was menaced by Christopher Lee’s Dracula. The following year, she appeared in Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed – which included a scene in which her character was raped by Baron Victor Frankenstein, played by Peter Cushing. In a 2014 interview with Classic Film & TV Cafe, Carlson said,

Peter was a sweet, lovely man to work with. I even introduced him to my parents. It’s impossible not to love Peter. He was one of the kindest, most sensitive people I have ever met in my life. He got me through that awful rape scene that was thrown into Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed. We worked on that together and he resolved the problems as best he possibly could.”

She also described Lee as being “so kind and so thoughtful in every thing that we did together.”

The year after Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed, she had a role in The Horror of Frankenstein, which starred Ralph Bates as Victor Frankenstein and future Darth Vader David Prowse as The Monster. Carlson’s other genre credits included Old Dracula, The Ghoul, Black Easter, Freakshow, and House of the Gorgon. She largely retired from acting in 1975, but came back to it for four features and a short film over the last forty-seven years. Her IMDb page lists her as playing Lady Whitehouse in a horror film called The Rectory, which is in pre-production. It’s not clear if her scenes had been filmed or not.

Carlson is said to have been a gifted artist as well. She’s survived by her daughter Carly, sons Adam and Marcus; grandchildren Cadence, Canon, Nova, Conor, Alexander, Jaxson and Ava; son-in-law Jon; daughters-in-law Ashley and Rachel; step-daughters Janie and Sally; and nephews Marc and Paul.

Our sincere condolences go out to her family, friends, and fans.