British actress Hazel Court, well known for starring in classic horror movies such as The Premature Burial and The Masque of the Red Death, has passed away at age 82.

Daughter Sally Walsh said Wednesday Hazel Court passed away on April 15 after a heart attack at her home near Lake Tahoe, California.

“She’d probably get over 100 pieces of fan mail a month and she would reply to every single one,” Walsh told BBC News, referring to her mother’s cult status as horror movie star. Court was well known for her roles in bloody, shrieking, macabre films of the horror genre, to which she contributed her trademark penetrating scream, a generous cleavage and gory on-screen deaths.

She was born on February 10, 1926 in Sutton Coldfield, Birmingham, and began appearing in stage productions as a teenager. She was only 18 when she appeared in a movie for the first time, in the comedy “Champagne Charlie.”

During her career, Court appeared in numerous American and British television series, such as the 1957 British comedy series “Dick and the Duchess,” co-starring Patrick O’Neal or “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” in the United States.

Other series she appeared in were “Thriller,” “The Twilight Zone,” “Dr. Kildare,” “The Wild Wild West” and “Mission: Impossible.”

She also starred in comedies and police dramas, but she made a lasting impression with the horror movies she appeared in during the 1950s and ‘60s.

She worked with prolific American director Roger Corman in three movies, “The Premature Burial,” “The Raven” and “The Masque of the Red Death.” Her co-stars in the 1963 adaptation of the classic Edgar Allan Poe poem were Vincent Price, Peter Karloff, Peter Lorre and Jack Nicholson.

Her ‘scream queen’ status was solidified through roles in films such as “The Curse of Frankenstein,” “Devil Girl from Mars,” “The Man Who Could Cheat Death” and “Doctor Blood's Coffin.”

She married twice. Her first husband was actor Dermot Walsh, whom she divorced after 14 years of marriage in 1963. They had daughter Sally Walsh. She wed American actor and director Don Taylor in 1964, and the couple stayed together until his death in 1998. The two had a son.

“She was one of the great beauties of all time,” Walsh told BBC. “She was a redhead with really green eyes and almost the perfect face. She was on the cover of almost every magazine.”

Besides acting, Court was a commissioned sculptor and painter whose works appeared in public galleries.

She had finished an autobiography, “Hazel Court - Horror Queen,” which will be published in Britain, said Walsh.