A popular shapely Playboy Playmate, blonde German beauty Susan Denberg, with the far away look in her eyes, was handed a lead role in a Hammer horror movie after playing one of Mudd’s Women on TV’s Star Trek. She grew up in Klagenfurt, Austria. At age eighteen, she traveled to London where, after working as an au pair, she became a Bluebell dancer in 1963. About a year later she accompanied the famous dance troupe to perform in Las Vegas at the Stardust Hotel where she met and married singer Tony Scotti future star of Valley of the Dolls. The marriage lasted only six months but the beautiful showgirl was bitten by the acting bug and relocated to Hollywood.
After studying at the Desilu Studio Workshop, Denberg made her film debut in the lurid over-the-top melodrama An American Dream (1966) starring Stuart Whitman as a TV talk show host who may or may not have killed his wife and is being pursued by the police and the mob. Small TV roles followed playing a German Girl on an episode of Twelve O’clock High and a gorgeous alien humanoid in “Mudd’s Women” on Star Trek. Denberg looked stunning in her blue off-the-shoulder tasseled mini-dress as one of the three loveliest women in the universe who mesmerize the male crew members of the Enterprise. The gals are cargo being transported by Roger C. Carmel who acts an intergalactic pimp providing brides to lonely men. Standing 5-foot-7 and measuring 34-25-34, Denberg had the same effect on Hugh Hefner who chose her to be Playboy’s Miss August 1966. She lists “Harold Robbins” as her favorite author and her turnoffs are “impoliteness, bad dressers, and self-admiration.” Susan’s pictorial was quite popular and she was one of the finalists for Playmate of the Year in 1967.
Denberg’s notoriety was noticed by Hammer Films in London who selected her to play the female lead in Frankenstein Created Woman (1967) opposite Peter Cushing. Wearing a long auburn wig, she played an innkeeper’s timid disfigured and crippled daughter infatuated with Robert Morris as the assistant to Cushing’s Baron Frankenstein. When Morris is set up for the murder of her father and beheaded before her eyes, the despondent lass jumps off a bridge and drowns. Frankenstein retrieves both bodies and melds Morris’ soul with the remodeled Denberg now a ravishing pigtailed blonde beauty. However, things go terribly wrong when Frankenstein’s creation tarts herself up and goes on a murder spree avenging those who framed Hans. After getting her revenge, she meets a tragic end. The movie was a hit for Hammer in part due to the misleading title and promo photos that led audiences to believe that Frankenstein creates the scantily-clad Denberg, but her suggestive poses in a makeshift bra and panties were not part of the actual movie. Though Denberg’s voice was purportedly dubbed by British actress Jane Hands because her German accent was too thick, the beautiful blonde still had the beauty and on-screen poise to become a Hammer Girl like Veronica Carlson and Ingrid Pitt. But Susan got caught up in the excesses of the Swinging Sixties. She turned down many film offers and was content to live off her savings while blowing all her dough on clothes and jewelry by day, and partying by night. Hence, her acting career was blown as well. She is reportedly still alive, despite rumors to the contrary, and residing in Austria.
Read more about Susan Denberg in my book Glamour Girls of Sixties Hollywood.