About Imogen Hassall
Imogen Hassal was an English actress whose movie career peaked in 1970 with supporting roles in El Condor, starring NFL running back Jim Brown and Lee Van Cleef, The Virgin and the Gypsy, as the wife of the Gypsy (Franco Nero), Toomorrow starring Olivia Newton-John, Carry On Loving, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, with Playboy Playmate Victoria Vetri, and Take a Girl Like You, with Hayley Mills and Oliver Reed.
Her first minor film role came in The Early Bird in 1965. By 1970, she had become a familiar face on the British small screen and could also be seen in numerous films, such as The Virgin and the Gypsy, an adaptation of D. H Lawrence’s novel, the Hammer monster flick, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth, and Carry On Loving, the 1970 comedy about an inept dating agency. By the mid-1970s, both the television and films roles started to dry up and Imogen began to seek other employment, taking on casual work in a wine bar. In 1979, she made her final screen appearance in the flop, The Man From S.E.X.
Hassall was married to actor Kenneth Ives, and before they were married, they had a daughter called Melanie Ives Hassall, who died four days after being born in 1972. She was briefly married to actor Andrew Knox (the son of actors Alexander Knox and Doris Nolan, who later committed suicide in 1987), but they separated after a few months of marriage, and she lost the baby she was expecting.
On 16th November 1980, police were called to Imogen’s home in Wimbledon by Suzanna Leigh, her friend and fellow actress, with whom she had been due to go on holiday that very morning. Imogen was found dead, her plane tickets in her hand, the cause of death an overdose of Tuinals, a combination drug used as a sedative. Andrew Knox, her former husband, would eventually take his own life in a similar manner.
Possessing a personal magnetism that defied her professional accomplishments, Imogen once remarked that she had two careers ‘as actress and as glamour girl.’ Tragically, she found fulfillment in neither. Her private life was tabloid’s dream. A regular on the party circuit and attending movie premieres, she was labelled “the Countess of Cleavage”. Her life had become a rollercoaster and her career was in a rapid decline. After several previous suicide attempts, Imogen finally succeeded on November 16th 1980, aged just 38.
Spouses
Andrew Knox(January 1979 - May 1979) (divorced)
Kenneth Ives(1974 - 1978) (divorced)
