Above is a lovely shot of British actress Zoe Hendry, who we last saw in 1975’s erotic epic Butterfly, and whose other credits read like a cautionary tale of cinematic ambition smashed on the rocks of rent paying reality. She’s played, in no particular order, “naked college girl,” in 1974’s Confessions of a Window Cleaner, “native dancer,” in 1976’s Queen Kong, “topless patient,” in 1978’s What’s Up Nurse!, and, “other girl,” in 1974’s The Man Who Couldn’t Get Enough. And who can forget 1976’s infamous Nastassja Kinski vehicle To the Devil a Daughter, in which Hendry played “first girl”?
Yes, it’s quite a résumé Hendry accumulated, but since she originally got her break on The Benny Hill Show—which made an industry of scantily clad women—her stalwart appearances in sexploitation films are no surprise. But she eventually outflanked one-track-minded movie casting agents by shifting back to television during the 1980s, where she got a chance to act more seriously. Probably got paid better too. Still, we’re irresistibly drawn to titles like Queen Kong. Maybe we have one-track minds too, but we have to watch that, right? Right. We’ll do the heavy lifting so you don’t have to, then report back.
