Peggy Moran

Peggy Moran, who has died aged 84, had a brief but successful career as a film actress in the late 1930s and early 1940s; for her role in the cult B-movie The Mummy's Hand (1940) she earned the title "the Queen of Scream".

In the late 1930s Universal Studios decided to make a new series of horror films to build on the success of The Mummy (1932), which had starred Boris Karloff. The Mummy's Hand was the tale of a living mummy, Kharis, the bandaged protector of the tomb of Princess Ananka. Kharis is controlled by an evil high priest (George Zucco) and, when the tomb is disturbed by an archaeologist and his team (including Peggy Moran playing the feisty Marta Solvani), the inevitable horror-flick capers ensue. What distinguished The Mummy's Hand from so many other films of that genre were some genuinely frightening moments and Peggy Moran's portrayal of Marta, who screamed splendidly and demonstrated more chutzpah than the average maiden in distress.

During the filming - although she had numerous scenes with the mummy - Peggy Moran never actually met Tom Tyler, the actor who played him. Indeed, she did not even know his name. "He had to be at the studio hours before shooting," she later recalled. "He was literally so wrapped up in bandages that he couldn't even speak to me. Needless to say, when he had to pick me up in his arms in a dark cave at four in the morning in the back lot of Universal Studios, it wasn't difficult to act scared. I was terrified."

The film is still popular among fans of the genre, although Peggy Moran was somewhat bemused by her cult following. She was always courteous to the fans who regarded her as a horror star, but she was not impressed by the The Mummy's Hand. "It was," she said, "a lousy picture."

She was born Marie Jeanette Moran at Clinton, Iowa, on October 23 1918. Her mother was a member of the Denishawn Dance Company and her father, Earl Moran, an artist specialising in pin-up portraits.

After her parents divorced in 1924, Peggy's mother took her to California. It was here that a chance remark about her daughter's attractiveness, made by a judge while Mrs Moran was on jury service, led to a screen test. Peggy Moran soon landed herself a series of bit parts in films such as Campus Cinderella (1938), and as the cigarette girl in Ninotchka (1939) which starred Greta Garbo, Melvyn Douglas and Bela Lugosi.

Annoyed at being unaccredited for her appearances, Peggy Moran walked into Jack Warner's office at Warner Bros and demanded a contract. "He was startled," she later recalled, "but it worked." After just six months, however, she was released.

She found herself an agent who touted her around Hollywood and soon landed her a role in the Gene Autry Western Rhythm in the Saddle (1939). In the autumn of 1939 she got a part in First Love with Deanna Durbin, which led to a long-term contract with Universal and an introduction to the director Henry Koster, whom she later married.

When Ann Rutherford was unable to appear in Seven Sweethearts (1942) because of illness, Peggy Moran replaced her, and that same year she starred in There's One Born Every Minute, the film that launched Elizabeth Taylor.

In all, between 1939 and 1942, Peggy Moran appeared in more than 30 films, many of which took only weeks to shoot and had punishing schedules. "I would get up at five in the morning," she recalled, "and would be at the studio at six, and I would work through until eight at night before they would break for the day."

It was, she said, "kind of a relief" when, in 1942, Henry Koster proposed to her. Koster asked her to give up her film career, but promised her a part in every one of his pictures. He then had a bust made of her, which duly appeared in every film he made.

Peggy Moran, who died on October 25, recently returned to the screen when, in 2000, she appeared in the documentary film I Used to Be in Pictures. She introduced herself to the audience with an almighty scream.

Henry Koster died in 1988. Peggy Moran is survived by her two sons.