Revealed: How Britt Ekland was tricked over nude dancing scene

When Britt Ekland agreed to star in what was to become a revered classic horror film, it was with the strict understanding that there would be no nude scenes. So, the Swedish starlet felt shocked and betrayed when a body double was brought in to play her character dancing naked in The Wicker Man.

Now, 50 years since the film’s release, the subterfuge producers used to deceive Ms. Ekland has been revealed. Directed by Robin Hardy from a script by Anthony Shaffer, based on David Pinner’s 1967 novel Ritual, The Wicker Man, also starring Christopher Lee, is the story of a puritan police sergeant who arrives on a remote Scottish island in search of a missing girl, only to encounter sinister pagan locals who deny that she ever existed.

Ms. Ekland was cast as Willow MacGregor, an innkeeper’s sexually-liberated daughter, who seduces the God-fearing policeman, played by Edward Woodward. In a new book about the making of the film, she has relived the horror of discovering that, without her consent, the film-makers brought in a stripper as her body double for the nude scene - despite an agreement that she would only be shown from the waist up. She said, “During the shoot, I had two days off, and that’s when they shot some of my scenes with a Glaswegian stripper.”

Mr. Walsh discovered that she had been the victim of “subterfuge” in the way that that scene was filmed. First assistant director Jake Wright recalls: “We filmed the dance sequence with Britt Ekland stripped to the waist singing and dancing. When it was finished, we said, ‘thank you very much, that’s enough for tonight.’

“She went downstairs and got into her limousine - and there was another limousine drawn up behind hers… The body double was lying flat on the floor so Britt Ekland couldn’t see her. As Britt had gone, up came the body double and we went on doing the other bits of the full nude scene.”

Ms. Ekland was distraught: “They just stuck a blonde wig on the body double. I couldn’t believe it because Robin promised that he wouldn’t do that. And the model’s body looked nothing like mine… I was just devastated.”

It has been reported that her then-boyfriend, rock star Rod Stewart, tried to buy the film to stop the world from seeing his then-girlfriend dancing nude in a provocative pagan scene. But Ms. Ekland says, “It’s so preposterous to even put such a thought out. Why on earth would [he] want to do that? I read about that all the time, and it just makes me laugh because it’s so far from the truth. I doubt that he even ever saw the film. There are so many rumors about this film… This, I can definitely confirm. It never ever, ever happened.”

The shoot took place in Dumfries and Galloway, which she described as “one of the bleakest places I’ve been to in my life”. While she had turned up in a sable coat and Gucci luggage, the epitome of the glamorous film star, it was so cold that, between shots, long-johns had to be worn. She added, “It wasn’t that usual a role for me. But I was cast as a beautiful girl, as I was in those days.”

Her recollections will feature in a forthcoming definitive book by John Walsh, titled The Wicker Man: The Official Story of the Film, to be published by Titan Books on October 24.

The 1973 chiller is being released by StudioCanal in a new 4K restoration on September 25. Mr. Walsh, an award-winning filmmaker, said that The Wicker Man was a failure on release but is today considered “The Citizen Kane of horror films”.