Eileen Daly

Did You Know?

• She revealed on Big Brother UK that she performed in pornography films while underaged.
• Daly was one of the first models for Agent Provocateur's lingerie range.
• She appeared as the female lead in Soft Cell's music videos for 'Say Hello, Wave Goodbye' and 'Tainted Love'.

Acting career

Eileen Daly co-founded the film production company Redemption Films with English horror director Nigel Wingrove. The company’s logo used an image of Daly, and she appeared as the Redemption Films Dark Angel character in custom introductions for many cult movies released under that label. A 1995 short film called Redemption Films was built around this Dark Angel persona. French director Jean Rollin met Daly and Wingrove in Paris to talk about casting her in leading roles for his films.

Daly has acted in numerous cult horror movies, including All About Anna, Cradle of Fear, Pervirella, Razor Blade Smile, Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft, Evil Calls: The Raven, Rose, Sacred Flesh, and The Amityville Asylum. She collaborated with American actor-filmmaker Joe Zaso and German director-musician Timo Rose on several projects, such as Karl The Butcher vs. Axe, Braincell, Darkness Surrounds Roberta, Timo Rose’s Beast, and Unrated. Her first significant role was a supporting part in the 1997 independent horror Pervirella, starring alongside Emily Booth, with a cameo by British broadcaster Jonathan Ross.

The next year, she took another supporting role in Witchcraft X: Mistress of the Craft, the tenth installment of the Witchcraft series, which earned a cult following but negative reviews. In 2001, she played a supporting role in the independent horror Cradle of Fear.

Television career

Eileen Daly was a familiar face on British television as a regular guest on shows like Sex & Shopping, Eurotrash, The Big Breakfast, and Kilroy. In 1997, she competed on the game show Karaoke Challenge, and the following year appeared in the ITV reality series Nightlife. When she and her then-boyfriend and business partner Nigel Wingrove launched Redemption TV, Daly got her own magazine show where she conducted interviews with actors, friends, and musicians, including Matt Berry from The IT Crowd and the rock band Nosferatu.

She also portrayed Redemption Films’ character The Dark Angel in introductions and promos for the Bravo channel. In 2012, Daly founded her own production company, Gipsyphilia Productions, and began directing and producing independent films and TV shows. One project was the documentary series Daly Does, which included an episode called Daly Does The Dead, a ghost-hunting trip to a haunted hotel in Whitby. The company later produced several series for Loaded TV, such as Daly Does Ghosts, Daly Does Ben Dover, Daly Does Pornstars, and Daly Does Webcam Girls, as well as the short film Mr Crispin at your Cervix.

She also served as a team captain on Loaded TV’s game show Come Again, alongside Ben Dover. In 2014, Daly entered the ninth series of The X Factor UK as part of a duo with her then-boyfriend Ben Thirkettle; they made it past the auditions but were cut during Bootcamp. The following year, she joined the sixteenth series of Big Brother UK. She entered the house on Day 1 and was evicted on Day 25, finishing in twelfth place and leaving to a positive reception.

She faced a public vote in the first week but was saved by viewers. While in the house, she had a notable feud with fellow housemate Simon Gross, and also revealed that she had performed in pornography as a minor.

Modelling career

Eileen Daly once shared a home with music video director Tim Pope, who created promotional clips for Siouxsie and the Banshees and The Cure. A friend of Marc Almond, she featured in multiple videos for the synthpop duo Soft Cell, playing the female lead in their hits Say Hello, Wave Goodbye and Tainted Love. Pope’s work for the band was compiled on the video album Soft Cell’s Non-Stop Exotic Video Show, which accompanied their debut record Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret.

She also appeared in music videos for Cathedral and Pulp. Before her media career, Daly worked as a stripper. In 1996, she became the face of First Choice Holidays, appearing in print and TV ads. The People newspaper then revealed her past as a performer in adult films, describing her as a “blue movie queen” who had acted in “kinky videos, featuring bondage and lesbian sex scenes,” and suggested the company’s bosses would be shocked.

She also modeled for BBC and Toyota advertisements. Daly was among the first models for Agent Provocateur’s lingerie line, promoting it on The Big Breakfast and Kilroy. Her image appeared on the covers of Bite Me, Bizarre, Bloodstone, Skin Two, The Chronicles Redeemer, The Dark Side, The Chronicles, and Time Out. Following her feature in The Dark Side, she became a regular columnist and contributor, reviewing independent films and interviewing directors. She also had a brief stint in radio, hosting shows for Deal Radio in Kent and FM1FM.

Pornography career

Eileen Daly began her career in 1979, when she and her mother visited an agent in a Soho office located above a strip club. Shortly after, she started appearing in films under the name Eileen Bailey for the Danish company Color Climax Corporation, including titles such as Big Tit Dreamer and Lucky Lesbians. Her first video was with Ben Dover, which also marked Dover's debut. Daly later disclosed on Big Brother UK that she was underage during these productions, noting that Color Climax was involved in large-scale distribution of child pornography between 1969 and 1979.

During the 1980s, she worked as a fetish and glamour model under multiple pseudonyms, posing nude for Color Climax magazines in hardcore bisexual, lesbian, and threesome photo spreads. She appeared on the covers of many of their magazines and in 1984 posed for a fourteen-page nude centrefold in Penthouse magazine under the stage name Grace. In 1989, she performed as one of the Penthouse Roadshow girls on their UK tour. She also posed for covers and photoshoots in magazines like Fiesta, Parade, Playbirds, Sexy, Swish, and Whitehouse.

Between 1985 and 1987, she made sporadic appearances on Playboy TV's show Electric Blue. In 1991, she starred in Linzi Drew's Striptacular video, and in 1999 she played a leading role in the softcore erotic horror film Sacred Flesh.