FEW people can boast a CV as colourful as Linzi Drew-Honey.

Glamour model, adult magazine editor, and erotic novel writer – to say she’s had an unconventional career would be an understatement.

Linzi – the latest in a series of special guests to appear at Darlington Film Club – has also done a bit of acting.

But she doesn’t consider herself an actress, despite an impressive list of credits – including An American Werewolf in London, the cult movie being shown at the club’s base next Monday, September 16.

Linzi will be appearing onstage at the town’s Forum Music Centre after the screening to speak about her role in the film, her life and career.

The 1981 comedy/horror, directed by John Landis, was a critical and commercial success, best known for its groundbreaking special effects and make-up.

So how did Linzi, then in her early 20s with no previous acting experience, land a role in such a big movie?

“I was just a jobbing model,” she says. “I wasn’t really an actress, but I had an Equity card because I used to be a stripper.

“I was sent along to an audition at Twickenham Studios where I met John Landis. They asked me if I’d be up for it, I said ‘yes’ and and they booked me. It was that simple.

“ I’d never done anything in a film before so I was very excited.”

Linzi actually appears in a film-within-a-film. Her role is as an actress in a porn movie being shown a Soho sex cinema where the two main characters meet.

Its title, See You Next Wednesday, is a recurring joke in most of the films directed by Landis. A poster for the fake movie was even made up and can be seen on the wall of a tube station.

The name of Linzi’s character, Brenda Bristols, was also a joke dreamed up by Landis on hearing her accent and finding out she was born in the city.

Linzi’s was the first scene to be filmed and she had no idea of the impact the movie would make.

“John just said it was a funny, scary movie – I thought it sounded a bit weird,” she says.

“When it was being made, I didn’t think it was going to be as huge as it was. John Landis was very young then, it was one of his early films.

“I only spoke two lines in it and here we are, almost 40 years later and people are still talking about it.”

Linzi went on to have roles in some Ken Russell films and made appearances in a handful of TV shows including Dempsey and Makepeace and C.A.T.S Eyes.

“As a glamour model I was reliable and people would give me a chance. I just fell into it,” she says. “I was a model and models just did bit parts.

“I was always playing a stripper or a sexy girl leaning over showing some cleavage.”

She adds: “Acting is a craft and that’s not something I could do. I never really thought of myself as an actress, but I got by and did some fun things.”

Linzi continued to be better known for her work in the glamour and adult industries, including a spell as editor of Penthouse magazine – taking part in a number of panel discussions on the subject of censorship.

In more recent years she has written two novels, Every Shade of Blue and Every Shade of Black – she describes them as “my sexy books”, adding: “They’re like 50 Shades but hotter, I’ve been told.”

She has plans to write an Agatha Christie-type thriller next, once she has the plot fully formed in her mind.

Linzi has linked up with the London-based Misty Moon Film Society, which has brought a number of actors to the North-East – including Fenella Fielding, Robin Askwith, Dudley Sutton and Ian Ogilvie – in association with the Darlington Film Club.

But when she made her first public appearance with Misty Moon at a similar event in the Phoenix Club, London, she found the prospect of laying bare the details of her life and career in front of an audience a daunting experience.

“I was waking up in the night in a cold sweat,” she said.

“But then I read my autobiography, which I wrote when I was 33, which reminded me about a lot of stuff. When I went back to my book it refreshed my memory so I was so I was in a really good frame of mind on the day.

“I was very nervous but it was just like sitting having a chat with people who wanted to know what I had to say.”

Linzi said she may get someone up on stage in Darlington to read an extract from one of her books. At the London event, she got a “proper actor” –David Barry – to perform the reading.

It’s a description she would also apply to her son, Tyger Drew-Honey. He is best known for his role in the sitcom Outnumbered, but is about to perform his first theatre role in Posh – about an Oxford student dining club, a fictionalised version of the Bullingdon Club.

“I’m so excited because he’s just doing his first theatre role,” she says.

“He’s done a lot of television and film stuff, but he’s never really done theatre.”

And she adds: “I’m very proud of my boy. He is a proper actor.”

* An American Werewolf in London, with special guest Linzi Drew-Honey, is at the Forum Music Centre, Borough Road, Darlington, on Monday, September 16. Doors open 7pm, tickets £11 available from www.ticketweb.uk or visit the Darlington Film Club Facebook page for more details.