Celebrity Nooz: Caroline Munro

Caroline Munro (Actress) - Dracula A.D. 1972

Updated: 5/15/23

Name: Caroline Munro

Birth Name: Caroline Jane Munro

Born: January 16, 1949 in Windsor, Berkshire, England, UK

Claim To Fame: Caroline Munro is an English actress, model and singer known for her many appearances in horror, science fiction and action films of the 1970s and 1980s, which include Dracula A.D. 1972, Starcrash, and The Spy Who Loved Me.

Family Life: In 1970, Munro married Judd Hamilton, they later divorced in 1982. Munro married George Dugdale in 1990 and were together until his death in 2020. Together they had 2 children; Georgina Dugdale and Iona May Dugdale.

Info: Munro was the youngest child of a lawyer and a housewife.

As a young child, Munro and her family moved to Rottingdean, near Brighton where she attended a convent school.

She and fellow former Hammer pin-up Ingrid Pitt are considered the Jane Russell and Marilyn Monroe of horror.

Munro has served as a trustee of the Ray and Diana Harryhausen Foundation.

Trivia: Munro's career began in 1966 when her mother and a photographer friend entered some headshots of her in The Evening News's "Face of the Year" contest.

Did modelling work for Vogue magazine at the age of 17.

She moved to London to pursue modelling work and became a cover girl for fashion and television advertisements.

Photo ads led to a screen test and a one-year contract with Paramount where she was cast as Richard Widmark's daughter in the comedy western A Talent for Loving (1969).

Photographs of Munro were used to portray Victoria Regina Phibes, the wife of the title character (played by Vincent Price) in The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971), and its sequel, Dr. Phibes Rises Again (1972).

Turned down the role of Ursa in Superman (1978), which went to Sarah Douglas, in order to play Naomi in The Spy Who Loved Me (1977).

The chairman of Hammer Films, Sir James Carreras, spotted Munro on an advertisement and asked his assistant, James Liggett, to find and screen test her. She was promptly signed to a one-year contract.

Munro has the distinction of being the only actor ever signed to a long-term contract by Hammer Films.

Munro was a popular pin-up girl during this time, although she refused to pose nude. She turned down an offer to do a nude spread in Playboy Magazine. In fact, she turned down the lead female roles in Hammer's Dr. Jekyll and Sister Hyde (1971), Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974), the unmade Vampirella,[13] Force 10 from Navarone (1978) and The World Is Full of Married Men (1979) as they all required nudity.

In the early 1980s, she appeared in music videos for Adam Ant's "Goody Two Shoes" (1982) and Meat Loaf's "If You Really Want To" (1983).

An early effort of Munro's was a single release by Columbia, "Tar and Cement", backed with "The Sporting Life".

In 1984, Munro collaborated with Gary Numan for the single "Pump Me Up", which was released on Numan's Numa record label.

Between 1984 and 1987, Munro was a hostess on the Yorkshire Television game show 3-2-1.

In 2019, she was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame.

In 2021, Munro started presenting Talking Pictures TV's new, exclusive series The Cellar Club. In the series, Caroline introduces celebrated and obscure horror films from her Cellar Club and gives her personal, insider perspective.

Where Are They Now: Munro is currently filming the comedy fantasy horror film The Pocket Film of Superstitions. According to IMDB, the film is described as a weird and wonderful merging of shades of folk horror, the supernatural with dadaist humour and a quaint British eccentricities that are long gone in the cinema of today. And Munro is playing The High Priestess. Sounds fun!

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