German postcard by Krüger. Sent by mail in the Netherlands in 1965. Photo: Georg Michalke.
Poltergeist
Who was Betsy Bell? On the internet, the best known Betsy Bell was a historical witch who lived in Adams, Tennessee, in the early 19th century. She was called 'The Bell Witch', and became the subject of a poltergeist legend in Southern United States folklore. The legend was the basis of three horror films The Bell Witch Haunting (Ric White, 2004), An American Haunting (Courtney Solomon, 2006) featuring Rachel Hurd-Wood as Betsy Bell, and Bell Witch: The Movie (Shane Marr, 2007). According to Wikipedia, the Bell Witch may have also inspired The Blair Witch Project (Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sánchez, 1999).
However, the girl in this postcard is not a poltergeist but another Betsy Bell. One of the few places we could find some information about this modern Betsy was IMDb. She was born Jutta Fug and came from Hamburg in Germany. In 1959, she came to Italy as a tourist with a guitar. She won the Miss Tourism beauty contest and began modelling in Rome. She specialised in record covers. Glamour photographer Georg Michalke must have taken her picture in the early 1960s. We adore his sexy pictures for several Krüger postcards of the 1950s and 1960s. Find some more of his photos on the postcards below, but also check out our post on him.
Rome was the European film Mecca at the time. According to a publicity photo at Alamy, Betsy was: "co-starring with actors such as Vittorio Gassman in The Success and Jack Palanee (sic, Jack Palance) in The Attempt (Sic). She appeared also in Cleopatra as one of Liz Taylor's maid-servants." But this information is not accurate. According to IMDb, Bell was not in the cast of Il Successo/The Success (Mauro Morassi, Dino Risi, 1963) nor in Le Mépris/Contempt (1963) nor in Cleopatra (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963). However, she did appear in the Italian Peplum Il sepolcro dei re/Cleopatra's Daughter (Fernando Cerchio, 1960) starring Debra Paget as Shila, the daughter of Cleopatra. Betsy played just a small part. Another press photo at Topfoto mentions that she appeared in Saffo - Venere di Lesbo/Sappho The Venus of Lesbos (Pietro Francisci, 1960) with Tina Louise, but again IMDb does not mention her.
Betsy appeared in eight Italian genre films as blond eye candy. Three years later she was seen in Tototruffa '62 (Camillo Mastrocinque, 1963), one of Italy’s favourite Totò comedies. Again Betsy’s part was again only a minor one. She then played a German student in a segment of the anthology film Gli amanti latini/Latin Lovers (Mario Costa, 1965), also with Totò. The anthology film was a popular European genre in the early 1960s, but the attractive blonde would play her most important roles in another popular Euro-film genre of the 1960s, the Spaghetti Western.
Elke Sommer by Georg Michalke. German postcard by Ufa (Universum-Film Aktiengesellschaft), Berlin-Templehof, no. CK 407. Photo: Georg Michalke/Ufa.
Claudia Cardinale by Georg Michalke. German postcard by Krüger, no. 902/164. Photo: Georg Michalke / Ufa.
Margaret Lee by Georg Michalke. German postcard by Kruger, no. 902/356. Photo: Georg Michalke.
Blonde bar-room chanteuse
Betsy Bell was the leading lady in Quanto costa morire/A Taste of Death (Sergio Merolle, 1968), starring Andrea Giordana, John Ireland and Raymond Pellegrin. This Western tells the tale of a retired sheriff, who is the only one to stand up against a gang of cattle thieves, which terrorizes the people of a snow-swept Colorado mountain town. The result was mediocre, and on IMDb, Van Roberts writes: “A Taste of Death lacks any sense of style and director Sergio Merolle doesn't do anything that has been done before.” In his review, Betsy Bell is not even mentioned.
Next, she appeared in the war drama Il dito nella piaga/Salt in the Wound/The Liberators (Tonino Ricci, 1969). She again played the female lead and the male stars were Uruguay-born actor George Hilton and German star Klaus Kinski. At IMDb, a Sgt. Slaughter writes: “A highly picked-on, but nearly perfect Italian WW II drama/action piece with a first-rate cast and some fantastic action footage. The film is so good, that it was basically re-made by Enzo Castellari years later as Deadly Mission.” And again there is no mention of the female star.
Bell played a smaller role as a saloon singer in Sartana nella valle degli avvoltoi/Sartana in the Valley of Death (Roberto Mauri, 1970) starring William Berger. Mario Gauci reviews at IMDb: “This is the first entry I've watched in a long-running series of Spaghetti Westerns revolving around the titular figure, played here by William Berger; as such, he displays no particular features that would make him stand out from similar anti-heroes (such as The Man With No Name or Django) and, in fact, is never even referred to by that nickname!” Gauci refers briefly to Bell: “For the record, the song playing over the opening credits King For A Day is quite decent and is even warbled, for no good reason, by a blonde bar-room chanteuse at one point in the film.”
Betsy Bell’s final film was the Spanish-Italian actioner Siete minutos para morir/7 Minutes To Die (Ramón Fernández, 1971). She played the female lead and her co-stars were Paolo Gozlino (aka Paul Stevens) and again, George Hilton.
To promote the film, she was (already in June 1966!) on the cover of Hola!, a Spanish magazine which called her 'la bella actriz hamburguesa' (the beautiful actress from Hamburg). She was quoted that her love life was more important to her than her career. That explains probably why we could not find more information about Betsy Bell.
US trailer for Il dito nella piaga/Salt in the Wound (1969). Source: Cronosmantos (YouTube).
Sources: Hola! (Nº 1138 - 18 junio 1966), Wikipedia, Alamy, Topfoto, and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 7 May 2023.
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