Barbara Steele (born December 29, 1937, Birkenhead, Merseyside, England) is an English film actress. She is best known for starring in Italian gothic horror films of the 1960s. Her breakthrough role came in Italian director Mario Bava's Black Sunday (1960), now hailed as a classic.

Steele starred in a string of horror films, including The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962); The Ghost, directed by Riccardo Freda and Roger Corman's 1961 adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's short story The Pit and the Pendulum. She guested on various British television shows including the spy drama Danger Man starring Patrick McGoohan. In 2010, she was a guest star in the Dark Shadows audio drama The Night Whispers.

In 2010, actor-writer Mark Gatiss interviewed Steele about her role in Black Sunday (1960) for his BBC documentary series A History of Horror.

Other

R. H. W. Dillard entitled his first collection of poems The Day I Stopped Dreaming About Barbara Steele (1966).

Partial filmography

Upstairs and Downstairs (1959)

Black Sunday (1960)

The Pit and the Pendulum (1961)

8½ (1963)

Lo Spettro (The Ghost) (1963)

White Voices (1964)

Castle of Blood (1964)

Terror-Creatures from the Grave (1965)

Nightmare Castle (1965)

The She Beast (1966)

Young Törless (1966)

Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968)

Caged Heat (1974)

Shivers (1975)

Piranha (1978)

Silent Scream (1980)

Dark Shadows (TV series revival) (1991)