Film producer and distributor Tony Tenser died 5 December 2007. Born Samuel Anthony Tenser on 10 August 1920 in London, England, he was most closely associated with British sex and horror films of the 1950s and ’60s. He was quoted as saying “I would rather be ashamed of a film that was making money than proud of a film that was losing it.”
He was the producer or executive producer of a number of genre films, including: Frightmare (1974), The Creeping Flesh (1973), Neither the Sea Nor the Sand (1972), Doomwatch (1972), Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971), The Beast in the Cellar (1970), The Haunted House of Horror (1969), The Body Stealers (1969), Zeta One (1969), Witchfinder General (1968), The Blood Beast Terror (1968), Curse of the Crimson Altar (1968), The Sorcerers (1967), The Projected Man (1967), Repulsion (1965), and The Black Torment (1964).
After serving in the RAF during World War II as a repair technician, he began his film career as a publicist. At the distribution company Miracle Films, he worked on La lumière d’en face (The Light Across the Street, 1955), which starred Brigitte Bardot, and coined the phrase “sex kitten” to capitalize on her physical appeal.
After retiring from the film industry in 1974, Tenser started a business selling wicker chairs. In 2005, John Hamilton’s book Beasts in the Cellar: the Exploitation Career of Tony Tenser, was published. Also in 2005, Tenser attended the Festival of Fantastic Films in Manchester, where he was honored with a retrospective.