"Dracula Love"

Greetings Night Creatures.

Dracula. The most feared and recognizable name in the dark history of the world.

Dracula. The undead fiend who rises from his coffin bed to seek the rendezvous that alone can keep him alive.

Dracula. Love Never Dies??

Hold it.... Stop the music. (Sigh) Dracula is not a romantic figure. At least not as described in Irish novelist Bram Stoker's famous book. In fact, Stoker wrote the character of the vampire king based on the cold and heartless personality of his client, actor Henry Irving. (Stoker was his manager) It was also rumored, but never
confirmed by Florence Stoker (Abraham's widow) that Stoker was in love with Irving and that love was acknowledged but never returned. In fact, Irving treated Stoker little better than a slave.

(Rats! Rats! Rats!)

Stoker also based the story's character of Abraham Van Helsing on himself as a sort of literary revenge for the years of rejection and abuse. He does get to see Dracula (Irving) dissolve into dust....

The novel Dracula was actually brought before Irving and his Company for a dramatic reading at the Lyceum Theatre. The thought was that it could be adapted into a play and Irving would be cast as the Count. After the reading, Irving's rumored one word critique that echoed through the Lyceum theatre was...."Dreadful"

Needless to say, Irving never played Dracula.

The Play did appear on London's west end as adapted by Hamilton Dean and John Balderson, and Hamilton Deane himself and later Raymond Huntley played the bloodthirsty Count on stage for the first time. Dracula was a villain. A black clad, audience-hissing villain. A long black cape with a high collar was first introduced as part of Dracula's wardrobe for the play to facilitate an illusion where Dracula vanishes as the vampire Hunters (Seward, Harker, Van Helsing) close in. the cape stuck around....

Dracula was a smash hit in London and naturally was brought over the Atlantic to the Big Apple.

On Broadway, Hungarian Bela Lugosi also played Dracula as a monster, but his good looks and suave valentino-esque foreign swarthy voice made women swoon. The audience (and indeed mostly the women) made Dracula into the romantic figure that he became over the years.

Great story: (Clara Bow, America's IT girl) was hosting a pool party when the touring Broadway production of Dracula was playing in Hollywood. When Clara was told at the party that tickets had been secured for the front row... (Dracula was almost impossible to get tickets for as it was perpetually sold out)... she leapt out of the pool threw a mink coat on over her wet swimsuit and rushed to the theatre. She sat in the front row 'squirming' in her damp suit watching Lugosi chew scenery (and necks). After the show, she insisted on meeting him backstage, and although Lugosi's English was very poor, they did manage to communicate well enough to start a torrid and much publicized 'steamy love affair'.

Lugosi commissioned a nude painting of Clara Bow to be done and kept it hanging up proudly throughout his many years, many wives and homes.

Dracula somehow became the symbol of forbidden passion. A bizarre 'rape' fantasy of a dark handsome stranger entering your bedroom and forcing himself upon you. The bite, (with it's twin phallic symbols) became the obvious penetration, and the eternal life at night? Well this was the roaring 20's after all.

Dracula = Love? 

Well...maybe. 

But not because of anything that Vlad V Tsepes did, and certainly not by any writings of the fictional Dracula's creator, Bram Stoker. It was all about the ladies, and as we all know that’s a beautiful thing. Tonight, give the lady.. (Or if you’re lucky) .. Ladies, in your life a soft bite on the neck. Tell them its tradition.

Rest in peace
Prof. Griffin