Audrey Campbell in OLGA'S GIRLS. Michael Bowen has just notified me of the death of Cincinnati-born Audrey Campbell, best remembered for playing Madame Olga in the sexploitation "roughie" trilogy consisting of WHITE SLAVES OF CHINATOWN, OLGA'S HOUSE OF SHAME and OLGA'S GIRLS -- all made in 1964. The IMDb credits her with only ten feature films, the other notable one being Joe Sarno's macabre SIN IN THE SUBURBS, but she also played minor roles in many a New York-based soap opera, including AS THE WORLD TURNS, THE GUIDING LIGHT, RYAN'S HOPE, even DARK SHADOWS. Audrey died last Thursday, June 8th, concluding what I'm told was a long stay in a New York City hospital, at the age of 76. The cause of her death has not yet been reported, but she suffered from kidney and respiratory problems in recent years.
I once wrote an essay on the Olga films for VIDEO WATCHDOG, which appeared in our sold-out issue #32. At the time, I was able to get Audrey's address from my friend, Charles Kilgore, who had conducted a superb and now definitive interview with her for his fanzine ECCO. (It appeared in #20 and was later reprinted in the booklet included with the Something Weird DVD release of the Olga triple bill of OLGA'S HOUSE OF SHAME, OLGA'S DANCE HALL GIRLS and the film that started it all, WHITE SLAVES OF CHINATOWN. In that interview, Audrey remembered that Andrew Sarris once listed her, Laura Antonelli and Jenny Agutter as his fantasy women in an article for AMERICAN FILM.) I sent a copy of the VW issue containing my essay to Audrey's home address and received from her a card of handwritten thanks that included her home number and an invitation to call. I took her up on the offer one Sunday afternoon (funny how I can remember that detail) and we talked for three hours or more, during which she told me (among other things) that my essay was the finest thing she had ever read about the Olga pictures.
I'll always treasure that memory particularly, but everything she had to say was of interest, especially her stories of the early days of live Cincinnati television. She had her biggest success in local television on WKRC-TV, where she was cast in the wrap-arounds of a bizarre late night movie called THE GIRL IN THE WINDOW. The opening, commercial lead-ins, and closing of each show found Audrey -- then known as Mrs. Audrey Theile -- wandering around her apartment in different $100 nightgowns from Shillito's department store, brushing her hair at her vanity table, filing her nails, getting ready for bed, and finally going to sleep. This 10:00 pm movie aired weeknights in 1956 -- the year I was born; I don't know how many years it ran, but I actually have vague memories of such a program. This marathon call was all on my dime, but I'd gladly have paid for it a second time if I could have had a tape recorder running. Fortunately, Don May Jr. and Synapse Films had the foresight to record an audio commentary with Audrey for their OLGA'S GIRLS DVD.
Audrey told me that she and Gerard Malanga (a fellow Cincinnatian) left town around the same time, in 1961, but kept in touch after they arrived independently in New York City. Audrey was courted to followed Gerard into the Warhol Factory crowd, but she never did. However, I suspect that Gerard's familiarity with Audrey's work in the Olga films helped inspire the whip-cracking role that was played in the Velvet Underground's Exploding Plastic Inevitable live stage show by Mary Woronov -- who had a look and presence similar to that of Audrey's Olga. The Olga trilogy actually anticipated Lou Reed's writing of "Venus in Furs" by a couple of years.
Strike, dear mistress, and cure his heart...
Audrey Campbell created one of exploitation cinema's great iconic characters -- a 1960s successor to the sorts of roles Myrna Loy played in the 1930s, but with a more brutal edge -- and she was a bright, vivacious, amazing person. I liked her a lot and wish I'd known she was ill.
