The femme fatale Ann Savage who earned a cult following for the 1940s pulp-fiction movies as Detour, has died at 87.

Mr Kent Adamson , her manager said she died in her sleep at a nursing home on Christmas Day from complications following a series of strokes.

Her Hollywood career had largely been over since the mid-1950s, but she had a resurgence over the past year with a starring role in Canadian cult filmmaker Guy Maddin’s My Winnipeg.

Starting with her 1943 debut in the crime story One Dangerous Night, Savage made more than 30 films through the 1950s, including Westerns (Saddles and Sagebrush, Satan’s Cradle), musicals (Dancing in Manhattan, Ever Since Venus) and wartime tales (Passport to Suez, Two-Man Submarine).

Savage was best-known for director Edgar G. Ulmer’s 1945 B-movie Detour, in which she played a woman ruthlessly blackmailing a stranger, played by Tom Neal.

Savage did some television in the 1950s, including Death Valley Days and The Ford Television Theatre, then left Hollywood for New York City, where she appeared in commercials and industrial films.

In 1986, Savage returned to acting with an appearance in Fire With Fire, a drama whose cast included Virginia Madsen and D.B. Sweeney.