Born Jytte Stensgaard, she moved to the United Kingdom to improve her English in 1963. She worked as an
au pair, studied stenography and became a model for a time. Stensgaard began her acting career in the film
La Ragazza con la pistola (
The Girl with the Pistol, 1968). She then played parts in diverse UK TV-series:
The Saint (1968; episode: "The Desperate Diplomat");
Broaden Your Mind (1969);
Doctor in the House (1969/70) – in which she played the recurring role of Helga, Dave Briddock's girlfriend;
On the Buses (1970; episode: "The New Uniforms", as Ingrid, a Swedish tourist);
Special Branch (1970; episode: "Miss International" as Nina Sareth); sci-fi comedy series
The Adventures of Don Quick (1970; as Flosshilda);
Jason King (1971; as Arlene in the episode "As Easy as A.B.C.");
The Persuaders! (1971; playing Bibi, a Judo instructress who assists Danny Wilde (
Tony Curtis) in the episode "The Morning After");
The Marty Feldman Comedy Machine (1972), and anthology series
Dead of Night (1972; as Gertrude Wickett in the episode "Bedtime"). Her film parts include the
Bulldog Drummond film
Some Girls Do (1969) as Robot One; she played small parts in ''
If It's Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium (1969), Scream and Scream Again (1970) and Doctor in Trouble (1970). She also appeared in the low-budget sci-fi sex comedy Zeta One'' (1969). Stensgaard's most famous role is that of the vampire Carmilla/Mircalla in
Hammer's
Lust for a Vampire (1971). The film was the sequel to
The Vampire Lovers (1970), which had starred
Ingrid Pitt as
Mircalla. The original film was an adaptation of
Carmilla by
Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu. However,
Lust for a Vampire shared little with the novel; it only used the vampire characters, and was thus a completely new story. In the film, the
bisexual Carmilla infiltrates an all-girl boarding school while falling in love with a novelist. Stensgaard auditioned for the part of the
Doctor Who companion Jo Grant, alongside third Doctor
Jon Pertwee in 1970. Towards the end of her career she appeared in pantomime and the stage-farce
Boeing-Boeing (1971). She also appeared on TV as a hostess on the popular game show
The Golden Shot hosted by
Bob Monkhouse. ==Personal life==