Betty Anne Rees dead: Actress who starred in The Unholy Rollers and Sugar Hill has passed away at 81

Hollywood actress Betty Anne Rees, who starred in The Unholy Rollers and Sugar Hill, has died at 81. According to her niece Kathleen Louks who told The Hollywood Reporter, “Betty Anne Rees died “at her home in Hemet, California, after a series of falls and a possible stroke. She also was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in the early 1990s.”

Betty Anne Rees was born Elizabeth Anne Rees on 14 April, 1943 in Ohio to father James, who was an attorney and mother Margaret, who was a housewife. After graduating from high school she attended the University of Miami before studying acting.

After starring in daytime soap operas such as General Hospital and The Doctors, she shared rooms in New York with actress Caroline McWilliams, who later became the wife of actor Michael Keaton. Betty Anne Rees went on to star in the 1972 movie The Unholy Rollers and played the part of Mickey Martinez, the film was directed by Vernon Zimmerman.

As the movie Kansas City Bomber starring Raquel Welch, had generated a lot of publicity, it was reported that the movie The Unholy Rollers was rushed into production to capitalise on it. The movie was edited by Martin Scorsese and executive produced by Roger Corman. 

Roger Corman, who directed a series of cult movies, including 1960s The Little Shop of Horrors, recently passed away at the age of 98. In a statement to Variety, his family said that "His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age.”

Betty Anne Rees also starred as Celeste in the 1974 movie Sugar Hill. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Betty’s character, “Celeste, the mobster’s racist girlfriend, gets into a fight in a bar with Sugar and (spoiler alert) gets carried off by the zombies at the end” Diana ‘Sugar’ Hill, played by Marki Bey.”

Betty Anne Rees’ last credit was in The Incredible Hulk and she also appeared in such shows as Adam-12, Police Woman, The Streets of San Francisco, Lou Grant, Barnaby Jones, Medical Center, Mannix, Mod Squad, The F.B.I. and S.W.A.T.”

Actress Betty Anne Rees never married and is survived by her sister, Barbara and nephew Brian.