Helga Liné (born Helga Lina Stern on July 14, 1932) is a German-born Portuguese-Spanish film actress and circus acrobat best known for her work in the horror genre of film. She made 132 appearances mostly in film between 1941 and 2006, but most of her work has been in Spanish cinema. Her name is pronounced "Lee - Nay" (emphasis on the 2nd syllable).

Biography

Helga Liné was born Helga Lina Stern on July 14, 1932, in Berlin, Germany. During the Nazi regime she fled Germany at a young age with her family, and took refuge in Portugal. At the age of just 9 she made her first film appearance there in the film Porto de Abrigo. Helga was a dancer and acrobat in circus performances in Portugal throughout the 1940s and later became a model.

In the 1950s she made further film appearances, but her career took off after she moved to Madrid in 1960. From this point, the red-headed actress made many appearances in the 1960s, particularly in horror and action films. She also starred in the spaghetti westerns In a Colt's Shadow (1965) and Have a Good Funeral, My Friend... Sartana Will Pay (1970). Although she appeared in giallo films such as So Sweet... So Perverse (1969), My Dear Killer (1972), Alta tensión (1972) and Red Rings of Fear (1978), she is best known for her horror film work. She appeared opposite Barbara Steele in Nightmare Castle (1965), and then starred as the spy Natasha in the Gothic feature Horror Express (1972), in the title role in The Loreley's Grasp (1974), as a vampire countess in the erotic film The Vampires' Night Orgy (1974), and as the leader of a Satanic cult in Black Candles (1982). She also starred opposite Spanish horror actor Paul Naschy in Horror Rises from the Tomb and The Mummy's Revenge in 1973, and appeared in the 1974 Peter Fonda film Open Season.

Later she would go on to work under Pedro Almodóvar in films such as Labyrinth of Passion in 1982 and Law of Desire in 1986. She also took part in the popular Spanish TV series Verano azul in the early eighties, as a secondary character.