GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGMENT IS OWED TO THE MANY PEOPLE AND INSTITUTIONS who shared their collections, memories, special expertise, and simple encouragement during the lengthy research for the original incarnation of this book and for this new, revised edition.
First and foremost, thanks are due my original agent, Malaga Baldi, and my editor at W W. Norton & Company, Hilary Hinzmann, without whose determination and enthusiasm this project would never have been realized. Christopher Schelling at Ralph Vicinanza Ltd. represented the new edition, and has similarly proved to be an effective champion of my decidedly eccentric interests as a writer. Denise Oswald at Faber and Faber, who previously acquired the revised edition of The Monster Show, has also connected with my sensibilities with unique editorial acumen.
Primary among individuals who assisted my research, I must thank Jack Balderston and Ann Burton, heirs to the Balderston and Deane estates, who granted me access to the agency files on the original stage productions and film negotiations. A very special thank-you is due to Robert A. Freedman, who shared memories and mementos of his father, the legendary literary agent Harold Freedman. The British Library welcomed me graciously in 1989, and its friendly staff steered me through the labyrinths of its Society of Authors and the Lord Chamberlain’s collections.
The most memorable interviews of this project were the wonderful hours I spent with this edition’s dedicatees, especially Raymond Huntley, who originated the role of Dracula in the 1927 London production, and Lupita Tovar, who starred in Universal’s 1931 Spanish-language version and graciously extended me an interview only months after the death of her husband, Paul Kohner. I will never forget the kind words she publicly extended to me at the restored film’s inaugural screening at the Director’s Guild Theatre in Los Angeles in 1992. During my research, her son, the producer
Pancho Kohner, graciously shared the family’s private print of the film for my study. Although he died shortly before I began work on this book, Paul Kohner’s legendary energy and enthusiasm as a producer for Universal and later as an international film agent, whose career encompassed virtually the entire history of motion pictures, was a source of fascination and inspiration.
Ivan Butler, who acted in Hamilton Deane’s original version of the play and later became a well-regarded film historian, jovially answered my endless questions by mail, telephone, and finally on camera. His widow, Hilda Butler, granted permission for the inclusion of his video interview on my 1999 documentary The Road to Dracula, for Universal Studios Home Video.
It was a very special privilege to make the acquaintance of David Manners, second male lead of the 1931 film, whom I had not met previous to the first publication of Hollywood Gothic, but later interviewed and corresponded with many times before his death at the age of ninety-nine in 1999. I thank Jonathan Sinclair Carey for facilitating our first meeting.
Carla Laemmle, niece of Universal’s founder Carl Laemmle, who spoke the first lines of dialogue in the 1931 Dracula, and who, at the time of this writing, is still happily answering fan mail at the age of ninety-four, has become a close personal friend.
I made many other friends during the course of the project, including film historian and preservationist Scott MacQueen, who offered invaluable criticism and a prodigious knowledge of Hollywood history on an almost daily basis. Ronald V. Borst offered me access to the most extraordinary private collection of fantastic film memorabilia in existence. I wish to express gratitude also to Ron and Howard Mandelbaum of Photofest, for their tireless assistance in locating the many vintage publicity photos used as illustrations, and to the memory of their late partner Carlos Clarens, from whose collection many of the best images were drawn. Lokke Heiss was a wealth of information on Nosferatu, and I highly recommend his cogent audio commentary on the DVD release. David Del Valle also opened his dazzling private photo collection for my research, and provided a hithertounknown still from the Spanish version of Dracula. The late Dwight D. Frye was most generous with memories of his father.
Dr. Elizabeth M. Miller, who has, in recent years, emerged as the leading and most indefatigable Dracula scholar, was a gracious and intelligent source for advice, opinion, and fact-checking. I also wish to thank the late
Raymond T. McNally, coauthor of In Search of Dracula, for his friendship, advice, and professional encouragement.
Research collections consulted included the New York Public Library’s major divisions, especially the Billy Rose Theatre Collection at Lincoln Center, the Library of Congress, the British Film Institute, the Royal Academy of Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Cinémathèque Française, the Museum of Modern Art, the Elmer Holmes Bobst Library at New York University, the Free Library of Philadelphia Theatre Collection, the Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, the Rosenbach Museum and Library (special thanks to Elizabeth Fuller, Michael Barsanti, and Stephen Urice); the University of Southern California Performing Arts Library, the New York State Archives, the New York University School of Law Library, the Huntington Library, the San Francisco Museum of Performing Arts, the Lobero Theatre Foundation, the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, the Watson Library of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the American Film Institute.
I am most grateful to the U.S. Treasury Department for extending me a visa in 1999 to visit Havana in order to study the only complete print of the Spanish Dracula then in existence, and to the late Hector García Mesa and to María Eulalia Douglas of the Cinemateca de Cuba, who extended every courtesy in my documentation of this fascinating, then all-but-forgotten film. Thanks are extended to Bob Guild of Marazul Tours, who made my Cuban travel arrangements as painless as possible. International thanks are also due to John Mraz, who conducted extensive archival research in Mexico City.
Special acknowledgments are also due Bernard Davies and the late Robert James Leake of the Dracula Society, London, as well as the society’s current president, Julia Kruk, and Dr. Jeanne Keyes Youngson of the Vampire Empire (formerly the Count Dracula Fan Club), New York, for making available some of the rarest visuals in this book. Individuals who shared courtesies, data, photographs, memories, and who generally shared their enthusiasm included Clive Barker, Buddy Barnett, Barbara Belford, Richard Bojarski, the late Carroll Borland, Ray Bradbury, Kevin Brownlow, Julianne Burton, Dr. Jose M. Caparrós-Lera, Stephen Cloud, John Cocchi, Ned Comstock, Mary Corliss, Samuel R. Crowl, William Cumiford, James Curtis, Bob Dahdah, Ian Dejardin, Norine Dresser, Geraldine Duclow, the late William K. Everson, the late Daniel Farson, Todd Feiertag, Laurence Fitch,
Barbara R. Geisler, Walker Gilmer, David O. Glazer, Richard Haigh, Eric Held, Irene Heymann, James Craig Holte, William Horrigan, Vincent Incognilios, Michael Isador, Susan Jenkins, the late Stephen Jochsberger, Mrs. Frederick Kiesler, James Kotsilibas-Davis, Richard Kosarski, Miles Krueger, Clive Leatherdale, Arthur Lennig, Elizabeth A. LeServiget, Julian Bud Lesser, Bill Littman, Greg Lukow, John McLaughlin, Ken Mandelbaum, Elizabeth Ireland McCann, Gary Miller, Norman Miller, Leslie A. Morris, Stephanie Moss, Mrs. J. William Morrison, Glenn Myrent, Donna Nardo, Susan Naulty, Jim Nemeth, Jeanne T. Newlin, John Norris, William G. Obbagy, Jerry Ohlinger, Terry Pace, Bill Pence, David Pierce, Vincent Price, Harold Reeves, Robert J. Reicher, Philip J. Riley, Laura Ross, Andrew Sarris, Elias Savada, Misha Schutt, Carlton Sedgeley, Nicholas Scheetz, Anne Schlosser, Rose Schwartz, Rob Shofner, Nadia Shtendera, Elliot Stein, Patrick Stoker, George Stover, Elaine Stritch, Chip Sullivan, Gary Svehla, Johanne Tournier, the late George Turner, Lisa Tuttle, Richard Valley, Robert Vaughn, Marc Wanamaker, Bill Warren, Tom Weaver, Patricia Wilks Battle, Lee Wise, and Lloyd Worley.
Additional thanks to Donal F. Holway, Gerry Goodstein, and Steven Speliotis for their photographic expertise, advice, and assistance on the original edition; to Arthur J. Walsh for working old-fashioned magic with an airbrush; to Harriet Eckstein for her digital skills and generous advice; to Lisa Pliscou for her original copyediting and perceptive editorial suggestions; to Tracy Stroh, for her meticulous copyediting of this edition; to Charlotte Strick for her marvelous cover design, and to Abby Kagan for interior design guidance; and to Sandra Skal-Gerlock and Kimberly Fronek, who provided invaluable assistance duplicating court records in Los Angeles.
A special credit is due Forrest J. Ackerman, whose magazine Famous Monsters of Filmland and its April 1963 feature story on Dracula was the undeniable inspiration for the book you now hold.
And final acknowledgments must go to my parents, John and Lois, who initially disapproved of my interest in horror movies, but eventually came to see things my way; and most especially to Robert Postawko and our beloved companion Fati, who, in their own very special ways, made this new edition possible.