Kirsten Lindholm

Kirsten Lindholm
Born
Kirsten Lindholm Andreassen

(1943-09-01) 1 September 1943 (age 81)
Odense, Denmark
Other names
  • Kirsten Betts
  • Elandra Kirsten Meredith
  • Vikram Kaur Khalsa
Occupations
Years active1969–1971
(as actress)
Spouse(s)Vic Briggs
(m.?; died 2021)[1]

Kirsten Lindholm (born Kirsten Lindholm Andreassen; 1 September 1943) is a former model and a film actress known for her roles in Hammer horror movies, in which she first appeared as Kirsten Betts. She is now a yoga instructor and performer currently living in New Zealand and is now known as Elandra Kirsten Meredith and by the Sikh religious name Vikram Kaur Khalsa (Punjabi: ਵਿਕਰਮ ਕੌਰ ਖਾਲਸਾ).

She was born in Odense, Denmark,[2] and was raised in New Zealand, where she won prizes for ballroom dancing. While majoring in languages at Auckland University, she acted in several plays.[3]

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, as Kirsten Betts and then Kirsten Lindholm, she was an actress and model. She appeared in a London play called Pyjama Tops (1969),[4] in the movie Zeta One (1969),[5] and then in four Hammer horror movies: The Vampire Lovers (1970),[6][7] in which her character is beheaded before the opening titles and during filming for which she appeared as one of a "[v]ampire quintet" on the cover of ABC Film Review,[8] Crescendo (1970),[9] Twins of Evil (1971),[10] where her role has been cited as an example of psychological violence,[11] and Lust for a Vampire (1971).[2][12][13]

At a yoga class in England, she met Vic Briggs, who had converted to Sikhism and taken the name Vikram Singh; they fell in love and married after moving to California, and she took the Sikh religious name Vikram Kaur Khalsa.[14][15][16] They ran a Sikh ashram in San Diego.[14] After living in Hawaii, where she worked as a healing practitioner[14] and founded Ho'omana Ke Laka Healing workshops,[2][3] she and her husband moved in 2008 to the Hibiscus Coast, New Zealand, where they both taught yoga.[17] She also sang backup for her husband on his One in the Goddess album.[3] Briggs died in 2021.[1]

  1. ^ a b "Daughter’s thoughts", Antion.info, 29 June 2021. Retrieved 2 July 2021
  2. ^ a b c Kirsten Lindholm at the Internet Movie Database.
  3. ^ a b c Elandra Kirsten Meredith Archived 2003-12-10 at the Wayback Machine at Yoga Technology.(Dead Link)
  4. ^ John Parker, Who's Who in the Theatre: A Biographical Record of the Contemporary Stage Volume 15, London: Pitman, 1972, p. 179.
  5. ^ Zeta One (1969) at British Film Institute Film & TV Database.
  6. ^ Denis Meikle and Christopher T. Koetting, A History of Horrors: The Rise and Fall of the House of Hammer, Filmmakers Series 51, Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow, 1996, ISBN 978-0-8108-2959-6, p. 253.
  7. ^ Bobb Cotter, Ingrid Pitt, Queen of Horror: The Complete Career, Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 2010, ISBN 978-0-7864-5888-2, p. 128.
  8. ^ Cotter, p. 135.
  9. ^ Meikle and Koetting, p. 252.
  10. ^ Meikle and Koetting, p. 257.
  11. ^ John Trevelyan, What the Censor Saw, London: Joseph, 1973, ISBN 978-0-7181-1123-6, p. 128.
  12. ^ Meikle and Koetting, p. 254.
  13. ^ Cotter, p. 139.
  14. ^ a b c Pritam Andreassen, "Musically Speaking: Music in the family," The Ebbtide, Shoreline Community College, November 14, 2003.
  15. ^ Kirsten Lindholm at Glamour Girls of the Silver Screen.
  16. ^ ANTION (VIKRAM Singh) aka Vic Briggs at unp.me.
  17. ^ Maryke Penman, Singing to a new tune North Shore Times, April 26, 2012.