Barbara Steele (born December 29, 1937) 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".

Scare creds: Black Sunday (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), The Horrible Dr. Hichcock (1962), The Ghost (1963), Castle of Blood (1964), The Long Hair of Death (1964), 5 Tombe per un Medium (aka Terror Creatures from the Grave) (1965), Nightmare Castle (1965), Un Angelo per Satana (aka An Angel for Satan) (1966), Young Torless (1966), She Beast (1966), Curse of the Crimson Altar (aka The Crimson Cult) (1968), Honeymoon with a Stranger (1969), Night Gallery (1972-TV Series): "The Widow" episode, Caged Heat (1974), The Space-Watch Murders (1975), Shivers (aka They Came from Within (1975), Piranha (1978), The Silent Scream (1980), Dark Shadows (1990-TV series) 12 episodes, Tief Oben (1994), The Butterfly Room (2010)

According to Kim Newman’s Nightmare Movies, she is on record as saying that she never wanted "to climb out of another fucking coffin again".