10 Actors Who Saved Their Careers By Starring In Horror Movies

From the 1950s through to the 1980s, Betsy Palmer was best known as a veteran Broadway and TV actress.

But Palmer's career path changed forever in 1980 when, in order to pay for a new car she desperately needed, she reluctantly agreed to play a small supporting role in an unassuming horror film called Friday the 13th.

Palmer of course played Pamela Voorhees, the psychotic mother of drowned camp attendee Jason, who is also revealed to be the killer at film's end.

The instantly iconic performance immediately won Palmer a new generation of fans, after which she had an incredibly active TV career throughout the '80s, and today remains one of the horror genre's most recognisable figures.

Palmer had mixed feelings about the movie's success for many years, though in later life came to embrace the part's importance in the genre and how beloved the original Friday the 13th continues to be.