Belinda Lee

While at RADA she was seen in a production of Lady Windermere's Fan and recommended to Val Guest who was looking for a girl to play in support of comedian Frankie Howerd in The Runaway Bus (1954).[3] (Eric and Blanche Glass were the ones who spotted her, according to one account.[4]) According to the New York Times she was the "seventy-seventh" girl to audition for the role and her casting was announced in September 1953.[5] Lee played a dumb blonde and later said "I really was dumb too – didn't know where the camera was half the time."[6]

For a time she shared a flat with Anna Kashfi. Guest arranged to have publicity photographs for The Runaway Bus taken by Rank's still photographer Cornel Lucas, who Lee would marry in June 1954.

She had another small part in Meet Mr. Callaghan (1954), a B-picture crime drama for director Charles Saunders at Eros. Then Guest used her a second time in a small role in Life with the Lyons (1954), for Hammer Films. Filmink said the latter contained one of her broadest performances.[7]

Lee was cast as a lead in only her fourth film, Hammer Pictures' Murder by Proxy (1954), with Dane Clark, shot in late 1953, and released in the US by Lippert Pictures.[8][9][10] She was in The Belles of St. Trinian's (1954), a hugely popular comedy from Frank Launder, at British Lion.

In December 1954 Lee was cast as the second female lead in a thriller Footsteps in the Fog (1955), supporting Stewart Granger and Jean Simmons, directed by Arthur Lubin for Columbia.[11]

Rank cast Lee as a nurse in a medical drama The Feminine Touch (1956), produced through Ealing under the direction of Pat Jackson, shot in mid 1955.[12] After a week at the Venice Film Festival she went straight in to a comedy, Who Done It? (1956), for Ealing, where she was the leading lady to Benny Hill.[6] During the filming of this she said she would prefer to be in romantic parts like Footsteps in the Fog.[13] These two films were among the last made at Ealing Studios.

Lee was a nurse again in a thriller with Donald Sinden, Eyewitness (1956), directed by Muriel Box for Rank. Lee replaced Diana Dors in The Big Money with Ian Carmichael, a film shot in April 1956 but which Sir John Davis of Rank disliked so much they delayed showing it for two years.[14]

By June 1956 she had made nine films, six of which were for Rank. She said being a film star was "really 90 percent luck and only 10 percent ability" and accredited her success to "being at the right place at the right time."[2]

In June 1956 she played Rosalind in a production of As You Like It in an open-air theatre at Regent's Park.[15] The same month she said "I want people to think of me as a serious actress and not just a glamour girl... It's rather hard to go from the films to Shakespeare on stage – it is easier the other way around. I left myself wide open for criticism." Reviews for her performance were mixed, but she received some positive notices.[16] The Spectator said "she combines eloquence of voice and gesture with a pleasantly un-leading-lady-like approach."[17] The Telegraph said "I don't suppose there has ever been a more high speed Rosalind in the history of the play... her gaety and vitality are spontaneous and charming. But all the time she was in her boy's disguise I kept thinking what a good Peter Pan she would make."[18] The Financial Times called her "brown as a nut, fresh as a daisy and pretty as a buttercup" saying she "made a spirited alfresco Rosalind even if a little too much on the cute side."[19]

During the play's run she said "my ambition is to make a great film. I am trying to break away from glamour parts. I love comedy but I don't want any more films with custard pies. And I don't want to stooge for comedians again."[20]

Lee was top billed in a crime drama The Secret Place (1957), directed by Clive Donner; she also had the female lead in Miracle in Soho (1957) with John Gregson, filmed in early 1957, and in the period drama Dangerous Exile (1957), opposite Louis Jourdan; during the filming of the latter she was injured when her hair caught fire.[21] Miracle in Soho was a flop but British exhibitors voted her the 10th-most popular British film star at the box office in 1957 (ranked in front of her were Dirk Bogarde, Kenneth More, Peter Finch, John Gregson, Norman Wisdom, John Mills, Stanley Baker, Ian Carmichael and Jack Hawkins – Lee was the only woman on the list).[22]

Towards the end of 1957 Lee went to Italy to play a model in the Ancient World in The Goddess of Love (1957). During the course of the shoot she had a highly publicised romance with a married noble, Prince Filippo Orsini, head of the Orsini family. This resulted in Lee leaving her husband Lucas in September.[23] In October 1957 Lee told the press "I had a strict and very ladylike upbringing. When I went to Rome it was the first time I had been abroad on my own. It was marvelous. I even learned to swear."[24]

Lee returned to Rank to make Nor the Moon by Night (1957) which was shot in London and on location in South Africa. During the shoot she told a reporter she liked to play "passionate exotic parts. I don't want to be the girl next door or somebody's sister. I don't really like being a simple outdoor girl either- good at heart, even when she's swept off her feet."[25]

During filming, Lee left to go to Italy to visit her married lover. Italian newspapers reported that Lee had taken an overdose of sleeping pills. Three days later, papal prince Filippo Orsini was reported to have been hospitalised after slashing his wrists. Police refused to comment on the newspaper reports linking the two romantically. Orsini, whose injuries were light, refused to tell the police why he had done it. Lee said that she had been suffering from insomnia and had taken an overdose by mistake. Both were married to others at the time. The Vatican said that Orsini would lose his title if it were proven that he had attempted suicide, and indeed the Pope did remove Orsini and the Orsini family from their hereditary title of Prince Assistant to the Papal Throne.[26][27] The Pope also made a speech decrying suicide, which was thought to be a reference to the Orsini–Lee scandal, although neither were named.[28]

Lee was smuggled out of Rome to return to South Africa in February to complete Nor the Moon by Night.[29] (Questions were asked in South African parliament whether Lee was given special treatment to get into the country as a customs and immigration officer went to meet her on the plane at Johannesburg airport so she could avoid the press. She transferred to a plane to Durban, stayed in the crew cabin and was allowed to disembark later.[30]) "I regret any harm I have done to anyone in Italy", she said.[31]

According to Filmink "Rank seemed unsure what to do with Lee. A well-publicised adulterous affairs can increase an actor's popularity – as Elizabeth Taylor would soon prove when she "stole" Eddie Fisher off Debbie Reynolds. However, in the British film industry of the 1950s, which liked its women sensible and/or straight bananas, it seemed to scare producers."[7]

In July 1958 she was announced for Love is My Business with Raymond Pelligin directed by Ralph Habib.[32] It was never made but while still under contract to Rank, Lee went to France to play the female lead in This Desired Body (1959), a romantic melodrama. The Monthly Film Bulletin later said "Lee gives an uninhibited but sympathetic performance in a part she was to make her own, the prostitute reformed."[33] Also in France she did Les Dragueurs (1959) starring Charles Aznavour, later released in the US as The Chasers.

In October 1958 Rank announced they would not pick up its option on Lee's contract at the end of the year, the same day they announced they would not pick up the contracts for Patrick McGoohan. (Two weeks earlier they made a similar announcement for Ronald Lewis.) "We cannot be certain of parts in the immediate future for these two artists", said a Rank spokesperson. "But that does not mean that they would not be very welcome if any suitable parts did arise. Miss Lee has often said she would rather not work in this country."[34] The spokesman added "the dropping of Miss Lee's contract has no connection with events earlier in the year." Lee, then in France making a movie, said "I had an idea that something of the sort was likely...Naturally, I am not pleased but neither am I too disturbed." Rank had cut its contract list to 23, when it had been 100 a few years previously.[35] "This will give me more time to make pictures in Italy and France", she added.[36] She relocated to continental Europe and Rank subsequently puts its efforts into promoting Anne Heywood.[37] The month before, John Davis of Rank had said "Young artists today won't work. They are given a big build-up by the press and it goes to their heads. We get others who say 'We don't want to leave Britain for a year'. They lose all sense of proportion."[38]

In December 1958 it was reported Lee and Orsini had moved in together in Paris.[39]

In March 1961, Belinda Lee died in a car accident near San Bernardino, California, on her way to Los Angeles from Las Vegas, along Highway 91, nine miles east of Baker. The car was going at 100 miles an hour (Lee was not the driver) when a tyre blew, causing the car to skid. Lee was thrown from the car and found lying 63 feet away; she was pronounced dead at Barstow Community Hospital.[47] The three Italian men with her were injured.[48][49]

Her ashes are interred in the Non-Catholic Cemetery (Cimitero acattolico) in Rome, Italy.[50]

After she died the Monthly Film Bulletin called her "an actress who will now always be remembered with affection as a star in the Crawford and Mercouri class."[51]

She left the bulk of her estate – thought to be £20,000 – to the Rome Centre of Experimental Cinematography to be used for establishing scholarships for promising students of the Motion Film Academy of Rome.[52]