With over 150 films to her name she is an icon of the B-movie era, a petite brunette with a gleefully wicked smile and a voice, as Raymond Chandler put it, "that could make a bishop kick out a stained glass window.
Whether victim, vamp or vixen with a great big gun, Brinke continues to work today, in features, cartoons, even historical documentaries.
With a degree in Marine Biology and substantial credits as a screenwriter, essayist and author of short fiction, she brings a degree of intelligence and wit to her performances not usually associated with the average scream queen, another aspect of the appeal of the petite actress, a torrid tempest in an A-cup who has outlasted many more pneumatically-blessed but gravitationally-vulnerable peers.
Of particular interest to the eeeeeevil conservative readers of this blog, Brinke donated over 24,000 copies of her comic miniseries to the troops through Operation Gratitude.
Brinke is the only "scream queen" ever condemned on the floor of the US Senate, by no less than Jesse Helms. Hard to see why.