Beautiful starlet Kim Parker (1933-2010) was born in Austria as Herta Padawer. She played in a dozen European films, including Pasaporte al infierno / Hi-Jack (1956) and Undercover Girl (1958). Her main claim to fame is the British Science Fiction film Fiend Without a Face (1958) about invisible atomic monsters which attack a U.S. Armed Forces base and the local residents.
German postcard by ISV, Sort V/6.
British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Kim Parker was born in 1933 in Austria as Herta Padawer. Her nickname was Kim. During WW II, she was interned in a German concentration camp and in 1945, she went as a refugee to England. She attended an art school and then commenced her career as a freelance illustrator, augmenting her earnings by modelling. The beautiful brunette wanted to become an actress, changed her name to Kim Parker and moved to London. There she did extra work in the adventure film The Seekers (Ken Annakin, 1954), starring Jack Hawkins, and the comedy Up to His Neck (John Paddy Carstairs, 1954).
The following year, she found a bigger part in the adventure film Stock Car (Wolf Rilla, 1955), starring Canadian actor Paul Carpenter. The starlet and the leading man fell in love, and they married the same year. She next played a fire maiden in the Science Fiction film Fire Maidens from Outer Space (Cy Roth, 1956), which starred Susan Shaw and her husband, Paul Carpenter. With her husband, she also appeared in the Spanish/British coproduction Pasaporte al infierno / Hi-Jack (Cecil H. Williamson, 1956) about a forger, who flees to Spain but then finds that his daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang. She played one of the three graces (another was Shirley Anne Field) in the musical The Good Companions (J. Lee Thompson, 1957) about a touring variety troupe. Then she appeared again in a film which starred her husband, Undercover Girl (Francis Searle, 1958).
Parker had her biggest part in the independently made British production Fiend Without a Face (Arthur Crabtree, 1958). The Science Fiction film tells about mysterious deaths at the hands of a mentally created invisible life form that feeds on atomic power and then steals human brains and spinal columns to use as bodies to multiply its numbers. The screenplay by Herbert J. Leder was based upon Amelia Reynolds Long's 1930 short story 'The Thought Monster', originally published in the March 1930 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Fiend Without a Face created a public uproar after its British premiere, according to Wikipedia: "The British Board of Film Censors had demanded several cuts before its release and finally granted the film an 'X' certificate, but newspaper critics were still aghast at its horrifying special effects. Questions were actually raised in Parliament as to why British censors had allowed Fiend Without a Face to be released, notably: 'What is the British film industry thinking by trying to beat Hollywood at its own game of overdosing on blood and gore'.
In the USA, Fiend Without a Face was released on a double bill with another British film, Grip of the Strangler / The Haunted Strangler (Robert Day, 1958), starring Boris Karloff. Together, the two films earned $350,000 in the United States and Canada, and $300,000 in England and elsewhere. The estimated production budget for Fiend Without a Face was £50,000 ($140,000), so MGM realised a profit of $160,000 on the film. While Fiend Without a Face was not a major hit, it was one of the more successful British films released in the U.S. in 1958. Unexpectedly, it performed better in the South, Midwest, and California than in the Northeast, where U.K. imports were usually more well received. MGM was also surprised by market research showing Fiend Without a Face to be a "stronger draw by far" than its companion release, The Haunted Strangler, which failed to generate much audience interest.
Kim Parker's career went nowhere. Her next film role was a secretary in the comedy-drama Count Your Blessings (Jean Negulesco, 1959), starring Deborah Kerr and Rossano Brazzi. It was her last film credit. In 1958, she had filed a divorce petition against Carpenter in London, naming bosomy showgirl Sabrina as co-respondent. Later, Kim moved to the USA and married Terry J. Howell. In 1977, her second marriage also ended in a divorce. In 2007, Criterion released a deluxe DVD edition of Fiend Without a Face. Fiend Without a Face is now considered one of the best B movies of the 1950s. In 2010, Kim Parker died in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was 78.
Small Dutch collector card.
Small Dutch collector card.
Trailer Fiend Without a Face (1958). Source: Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers (YouTube).
Sources: Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 7 February 2026.
German postcard by ISV, Sort V/6.
British postcard in the Greetings series. Photo: J. Arthur Rank Organisation.
Fire maiden from outer space
Kim Parker was born in 1933 in Austria as Herta Padawer. Her nickname was Kim. During WW II, she was interned in a German concentration camp and in 1945, she went as a refugee to England. She attended an art school and then commenced her career as a freelance illustrator, augmenting her earnings by modelling. The beautiful brunette wanted to become an actress, changed her name to Kim Parker and moved to London. There she did extra work in the adventure film The Seekers (Ken Annakin, 1954), starring Jack Hawkins, and the comedy Up to His Neck (John Paddy Carstairs, 1954).
The following year, she found a bigger part in the adventure film Stock Car (Wolf Rilla, 1955), starring Canadian actor Paul Carpenter. The starlet and the leading man fell in love, and they married the same year. She next played a fire maiden in the Science Fiction film Fire Maidens from Outer Space (Cy Roth, 1956), which starred Susan Shaw and her husband, Paul Carpenter. With her husband, she also appeared in the Spanish/British coproduction Pasaporte al infierno / Hi-Jack (Cecil H. Williamson, 1956) about a forger, who flees to Spain but then finds that his daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang. She played one of the three graces (another was Shirley Anne Field) in the musical The Good Companions (J. Lee Thompson, 1957) about a touring variety troupe. Then she appeared again in a film which starred her husband, Undercover Girl (Francis Searle, 1958).
Parker had her biggest part in the independently made British production Fiend Without a Face (Arthur Crabtree, 1958). The Science Fiction film tells about mysterious deaths at the hands of a mentally created invisible life form that feeds on atomic power and then steals human brains and spinal columns to use as bodies to multiply its numbers. The screenplay by Herbert J. Leder was based upon Amelia Reynolds Long's 1930 short story 'The Thought Monster', originally published in the March 1930 issue of Weird Tales magazine. Fiend Without a Face created a public uproar after its British premiere, according to Wikipedia: "The British Board of Film Censors had demanded several cuts before its release and finally granted the film an 'X' certificate, but newspaper critics were still aghast at its horrifying special effects. Questions were actually raised in Parliament as to why British censors had allowed Fiend Without a Face to be released, notably: 'What is the British film industry thinking by trying to beat Hollywood at its own game of overdosing on blood and gore'.
In the USA, Fiend Without a Face was released on a double bill with another British film, Grip of the Strangler / The Haunted Strangler (Robert Day, 1958), starring Boris Karloff. Together, the two films earned $350,000 in the United States and Canada, and $300,000 in England and elsewhere. The estimated production budget for Fiend Without a Face was £50,000 ($140,000), so MGM realised a profit of $160,000 on the film. While Fiend Without a Face was not a major hit, it was one of the more successful British films released in the U.S. in 1958. Unexpectedly, it performed better in the South, Midwest, and California than in the Northeast, where U.K. imports were usually more well received. MGM was also surprised by market research showing Fiend Without a Face to be a "stronger draw by far" than its companion release, The Haunted Strangler, which failed to generate much audience interest.
Kim Parker's career went nowhere. Her next film role was a secretary in the comedy-drama Count Your Blessings (Jean Negulesco, 1959), starring Deborah Kerr and Rossano Brazzi. It was her last film credit. In 1958, she had filed a divorce petition against Carpenter in London, naming bosomy showgirl Sabrina as co-respondent. Later, Kim moved to the USA and married Terry J. Howell. In 1977, her second marriage also ended in a divorce. In 2007, Criterion released a deluxe DVD edition of Fiend Without a Face. Fiend Without a Face is now considered one of the best B movies of the 1950s. In 2010, Kim Parker died in Las Vegas, Nevada. She was 78.
Small Dutch collector card.
Small Dutch collector card.
Trailer Fiend Without a Face (1958). Source: Rotten Tomatoes Classic Trailers (YouTube).
Sources: Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen, Wikipedia and IMDb.
This post was last updated on 7 February 2026.
4 comments:
Yet another beautiful talent I would never have known about if not for EFSP! Keep up the good work
Happy new year!
I just rediscovered, online, "Fiend Without a Face" which I had seen on late-night television shows in the '60s (I was in my teens then). I was riveted by how sexy, beautiful and magnetic Herta Padawer (Kim Parker) is in this weird flick. I had to go back to gaze at the images of her. She had what had to have been the most exquisite neckline of any actress of the time (save Audrey Hepburn perhaps) and in this flick radiates intelligence, savvy and lightning-quick interaction with her colleagues (the growing entanglement with the Marshall Thomson character is totally captivating). There have been very few actresses for whom I ever developed what could be called an obsession, but I must say Herta Padawer is one. She is a starlet that one truly wishes one could have known and gotten close to in real life. It's also heartbreaking that she had been put in a Nazi concentration camp when she was a little girl, only liberated when the Allies arrived, a fact that for me adds tremendous pathos to her mysterious, deep gaze.
Thank you very much, Kirk, for sharing this memory about an obsession. Fiend without a face is now on our must-see-list.
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