THIS grotesque image appeared on an Adver front page in late May of 1951.

It was taken during a rehearsal for a local theatre group’s production for a now-forgotten play called The Girl Who Couldn’t Quite.

We reproduce it here only because the woman is one of the most enigmatic figures in British cinema history.

Our story began: "Sweet and unassuming in tartan skirt and angora cardigan, and without make-up, 21-year-old actress Carol Marsh presented herself for rehearsal at the Swindon Playhouse today.

“She is playing there next week in Mr Roger Weldon’s Pyramid Players’ Production of The Girl Who Couldn’t Quite, in which she will be spanked by Mr Weldon at every performance.”

The Playhouse was the upstairs theatre at the Mechanics’ Institute.

At the time, Carol Marsh seems to have been mostly a jobbing repertory theatre actress, moving from production to production with a variety of companies.

However, she had already secured a place in the celluloid firmament.

In 1947 she had starred opposite Richard Attenborough in Brighton Rock. Based on Graham Greene’s classic novel about a brutal young gangster, it has long since come to be regarded as one of the greatest British films of all time.

Two years later, the actress had taken the starring role in a French adaptation of Alice in Wonderland. The film is also regarded as a classic of its kind, although it was suppressed in Britain because the Queen of Hearts seemed to be based on Queen Victoria.

It was also supposedly suppressed in America for fear of diverting attention from the Disney version.

A few months after the Adver’s photo was taken, the young actress would appear in another acclaimed British film, Scrooge. The adaptation of A Christmas Carol starred Alastair Sim, with Marsh appearing as the title character’s beloved sister, Fan, in flashback.

In 1958, she would win the role of Lucy, doomed fiancé of Jonathan Harker, in the first Hammer Dracula film. Her character was therefore one of the first to be bitten by Christopher Lee in the role for which he would remain best known for the rest of his life.

She was photographed between takes, sitting up in a coffin and drinking a cup of tea, and made up to look as if she had the burned imprint of a crucifix on her forehead.

Carol Marsh appeared in only a handful of other films, along with various television and radio programmes. She seems to have faded from view by the end of the 1970s.

She died in London in 2010. Obituaries gave her age as 83, which means that in 1951 she was a little older than the age given in our article.

One of those obituaries quoted from an interview she gave in the 1990s: “People kept telling me, 'When the next film comes out you'll be a star forever. But it never happened.’”