Death at the Grindhouse: Women in Krimi (Part I): Ingrid Steeger

Unknown photo-models were often put into minor "sexy" roles in the Wallace-like Krimis. Their fates show remarkable similarities and even more remarkable differences. Very few stayed in the movie-business, even fewer made it big. Others just dropped out and I had/have a hard time finding them.

So I start with something easy (for me):

Ingrid Steeger

Ingrid Steeger was some kind of cultural treasure in Germany. Everybody knew her. Clothed and naked. She made the transition from 8mm BDSM loops to a well booked stage and TV actress and certainly was an often invited celebrity. Few people know that her voyage in the movie industry started with two Edgar Wallace Movies. She died in 2023.

Born April 1st 1947 in war-torn Berlin into the not-so-ideal familiy of PTSD soldiers, returning from POW-camps, women raped by russian soldiers and kids playing in minefields she is basically both neglected and abused throughout her childhood. Having to live in one room as family in a bombed- out city, does not help either.

Predictably bad at school, the only way out of this greyish nightmare that is Berlin in the 60ies are the newly opened discotheques where she and her older sister Julia become regular visitors and due to her unusual combination of being both boyish-slender and buxomesque, a well photographed motive for the reporting newspapers.

Ingrid, having won a bauty contest - but not the
car.

First nude shoots bring her to the attention of Horst Wendland of Rialto who explores the possibility of bringing their Edgar Wallace up-to-date with fresh female faces and bodies. They give her and another model - Heidrun Hankammer - their first roles in the ill-planned and ill-executed "Gorilla von Soho", which stars Uschi Glas.

In Gloria's Club, she is a barmaid and is seen in two short segments. In the first one she comes in with a tray, walking down the stairs. She hits the behind of the male model with that tray and walks on.

In the second scene she just serves Whisky.

But nothing came from "Gorilla" for Steeger and after that movie she gets some minor roles here and there and basically does everything needed to survive.

One BDSM-loop survives.

Erwin C. Dietrich, always looking for loose girls had had considerable success with snatching Hankammer from Rialto and her starring-role in "The Colonel's Nieces" 1968.

He gives Steeger the starring role in "Me, the Groupie" (1970), a sleazefest of epic proportions, depicting her "scandalous" journey from a young, innocent girl to a drug-infested, sex-crazed groupie.

A cautionary tale, told to the fullest extent (including black masses and rape) by Dietrich, of course. Steeger later wrote in her autobiography "And I think it's marvelous" about the real rapes that happened to her during that time which makes watching her "play" being raped very uncomfortable. A huge hit. And obligatory viewing for every sleaze fanatic.

Completely harmless scene from "Ich, ein Groupie"

When the "Report" movies get big shortly afterwards, she becomes a star. Alongside hundreds of young women, ready to strip off their clothes, she stands out, becomes a recognizable face and name in the cycle. Both obedient and feisty, she attracts a lot of men eager to exploit her. Naming the sex-movies she was part of and even the star would be too much for this blog.

I counted 24 report-style movies in the span of 18 months.

Erwin C. Dietrich, of course, is riding the wave too and produces his "Underage Seductresses" series starring Steeger. Later he would recut the movies and redistribute them under different names to further make profit from her new found fame after she had become a TV-star. Steeger was not too happy, cutting him out of her autobiography and just giving him one line as "this swiss guy that recut one of my movies".

Record Cover of one of those awful fake-hit-song
LPS where semigifted studio-musicians rerecorded
the original hits without telling you. This still happens,
on youtube, but at least you don't have to pay for it.

In 1972 she gets a role in the last "real" Rialto EW-Krimi "Die Tote aus der Themse", of course mostly clothes-free.

She actually has a name here: Kitty. She is a nude model, working for the Photographer David Armstrong, played by Vadim Glowna.

Reality is not so much different for her, going through the wild life of hippidom with the dark sides of abuse and rape occasionally happening to her.

In 1973 she caught the attention of Michael Pfleghar, a bigtime TV director who is looking for a german Goldie Hawn and a new plaything for himself. In the role of Gaby, the unhinged daughter of the "KLIMBIM" (something loud, fancy, shining and completely unnecessary maybe "Flitter Flutter" would be an approach of a translation) family, she becomes a national celebrity. The "Klimbim" series about a completely anarchic and dysfunctional family runs for 5 seasons and has guest stars like Jerry Lewis, Karin Dor, Curd Jürgens, Maria Schell, Dietmar Schönherr and Horst Buchholz.

Gaby making it big on the cover
of Germany's biggest (and only
relevant) youth culture magazine.

Meanwhile her personal life is dominated by Pfleghar and cocaine is her run-to "little helper". After "Klimbim" she still works for Pfleghar in a series called "Two heavenly Daughters" with Iris Berben, who became a big movie producer in her later years and coincidentally had started as actress in Edgar Wallace Krimis too.

Iris Berben, Ingrid Steeger and Theo Lingen

Finally freeing herself, she is offered a steady stream of occasional roles in german TV-productions and does a lot of stage-touring in the early 1980s.

Her personal life stays troubled as she obviously has a habit of falling for the completely wrong men. Reading her autobiography, this is a an endless series of physical and mental abuse, breakdowns and and complete personality drainage. One would like to shout at her: "Wake up, Girl. Get a farm and raise chicken." But even that fails.

The list of lovers is endless as she is a trophy. Simple as that - and was not able or willing to get out of this role.

Re-enacting her Role as Gaby in the later years
in Sesame-Street, to the right is Liselotte Pulver

The later years see her struggling to get a steady income, writing and selling multiple memoirs that show a passive-agressive streak, maybe she thought her misfortunes would boost sales or maybe she was that way... As of now, her last book "Meine Mannschaft" (My team of men) in which she just talks about her numerous lovers and nothing else can be bought as overstock: 2000 units for 500 EUR/US-$.

She finally has got to move in and live with her older sister but steadily refuses to become part of the burnt-out-stars cycle of endless humiliating shows, admirably.

She died in 2023, making, for the last time, national news.