Jenny Agutter: That Nurse in That Werewolf Movie
Women in Horror for Women’s History Month 2023
We all know Jenny Agutter as nurse Alex Price in An American Werewolf in London (1981), which she starred in after she moved from England to Hollywood. Some of us know her as the mom in Child’s Play 2 (1990), the girl in Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout (1971), or maybe as Jessica in the cult classic Logan’s Run (1976). But she’s done so much more, and we’re only going to look at some of it here.
She also played Cleopatra in the “Peter Pan Theatre” segment Amazon Women on the Moon (1987), directed by Carl Gottlieb, better known as the writer for Jaws (1975), Jaws 2 (1978), Jaws 3-D (1983), and The Jerk (1979). She played Mary Shelly in Shelly, a BBC TV series (1972). She also had bit parts in Sam Raimi’s Darkman (1990), and Captain America: The Winter Soldier (2014) directed by Joe Russo and Anthony Russo.
One of my favorite films she starred in however, was the Freddie Francis/Ken Wiederhorn directed Dark Tower (1987), Francis’s last directorial effort. She plays architect Carolyn Page the widow of the architect who designed and is haunting The Dark Tower. The great thing about writing these articles is finding something to watch. I’m a big fan of the horror fiction of James Herbert and can’t wait to watch her in The Survivor (1981) based on Herbert’s novel.
She also played in one episode apiece of the original Magnum P.I., Murder She Wrote, the 80s Equalizer, Dream On, and even Red Dwarf. She played in two episodes apiece of the original The Six Million Dollar Man, and the second run of The Twilight Zone TV series in the 1980s, in which she played Morgan le Fay in the second story from season 1 episode 24 “The Last Defender of Camelot,” and she played Jacinda Carlyle in season 2 episode 10 “Voices in the Earth.”
Currently, he has had a regular lead role as Sister Julienne in Call the Midwife (2012-2023), but horror fans will always remember her as the nurse in that werewolf movie.