• Anime
• Anno Dracula
• Anno Dracula series
• Anthony Hopkins
• Apocalypse (comics)
• Arthur Holmwood
• BBC
• Blacula
• Blade Trinity
• Blood for Dracula
• Borgo Pass
• Bram Stoker
• Brides of Dracula
• Buckingham Palace
• Buffy canon
• Buffy vs. Dracula
• Caliber Comics
• Casper Van Dien
• Castlevania
• Christopher Plummer
• Clan Akkaba
• Count Dracula
• Count Dracula (1977)
• Count Orlok
• David Carradine
• David Moroni
• David Suchet
• DC Comics
• Demons (TV series)
• Doctor of Letters
• Doctor of Medicine
• Doctor of Philosophy
• Dracula
• Dracula (1924 play)
• Dracula (1931 film)
• Dracula (1958 film)
• Dracula (1968 film)
• Dracula (1973 film)
• Dracula (1973)
• Dracula (1979 film)
• Dracula (1992 film)
• Dracula (1995 play)
• Dracula (1996 play)
• Dracula (2002 film)
• Dracula (2002)
• Dracula (2006 film)
• Dracula (comics)
• Dracula (pinball)
• Dracula 2000
• Dracula 3000
• Dracula 3D
• Dracula AD 1972
• Dracula Hakushaku
• Dracula II Ascension
• Dracula III Legacy
• Dracula Origin
• Dracula Resurrection
• Dracula The Series
• Dracula the Un-dead
• Dracula Unleashed
• Dracula's Daughter
• Dracula's Death
• Dracula, the Musical
• Drakula İstanbul'da
• Dutch (ethnic group)
• Edward Van Sloan
• Eponymous
• Fangland
• Frank Finlay
• Gabriel Van Helsing
• Gangrene
• Gene Colan
• Geraint Wyn Davies
• Gerard Butler
• Giancarlo Giannini
• Gothic horror
• Hellsing
• Hellsing (manga)
• Herbert Lom
• Hotel Transylvania
• House of Dracula
• Hugh Jackman
• Human
• Insane asylum
• Integra Hellsing
• Italian comics
• ITV
• Jack Gwillim
• Jack the Ripper
• Joanna Lumley
• John Gottowt
• John Seward
• Jonathan Harker
• Kim Newman
• Laurence Olivier
• Leonard Wolf
• Love at First Bite
• Lucy Westenra
• Manga
• Martin Mystère
• Marvel Comics
• Mel Brooks
• Metaphysics
• Mina Harker
• Mina Murray
• Nadja
• Nigel Davenport
• Night Force
• Nosferatu
• Peter Cushing
• Peter Fonda
• Post-nominal letters
• Protagonist
• Queen Victoria
• Quincey Morris
• Rachel van Helsing
• Renfield
• Richard Benjamin
• Robin Stewart
• Scars of Dracula
• Stan Helsing
• Stephanie Beacham
• Sword of Dracula
• Tales of the Slayer
• Template Dracula
• The Historian
• The Monster Squad
• The Tomb of Dracula
• Tom Palmer (comics)
• Transylvania
• Travel trailer
• Universal Monsters
• Vampira (film)
• Vampire
• Vampire hunter
• Vampire in Venice
• Vampirella
• Vampyros Lesbos
• Van Helsing (film)
• Vlad the Impaler
• Wales
• Walter Ladengast
• Whitby
• Young Dracula
• 
  

• 
  Buckingham Palace
  Buckingham Palace is the official London residence and office of the British monarch. Located in the City of Westminster, the palace is a setting for state occasions and royal hospitality. It has been a focus for the British people at times of national rejoicing and crisis.
  Originally known as Buckingham House, the building which forms the core of today's palace was a large townhouse built for the Duke of Buckingham in 1705 on a site which had been in private ownership for at least 150 years. It was subsequently acquired by George III in 1761 as a private residence for Queen Charlotte, and known as "The Queen's House". During the 19th century it was enlarged, principally by architects John Nash and Edward Blore, forming three wings around a central courtyard. Buckingham Palace finally became the official royal palace of the British monarch on the accession of Queen Victoria in 1837. The last major structural additions were made in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, including the East front which contains the well-known balcony on which the Royal Family traditionally congregate to greet crowds outside. However, the palace chapel was destroyed by a German bomb in World War II; the Queen's Gallery was built on the site and opened to the public in 1962 to exhibit works of art from the Royal Collection.
  
  wn.com/Buckingham_Palace
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  Wales
  Wales ⁱ/ˈweɪlz/ (Welsh: Cymru;Welsh pronunciation: [ˈkəm.rɨ] ( listen)) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom and the island of Great Britain,bordered by England to its east and the Atlantic Ocean and Irish Sea to its west. It has a population of three million, and a total area of 20,779 km² (8,023 sq mi). Wales has over 1,200 km (750 mi) of coastline, including its offshore islands; the largest, Anglesey (Ynys Môn), is also the largest island in the Irish Sea. Wales is largely mountainous, with its highest peaks in the north and central areas, especially in Snowdonia (Eryri), which contains Snowdon (Yr Wyddfa), its highest summit.
  During the Iron Age and early medieval period, Wales was inhabited by the Celtic Britons. A distinct Welsh national identity emerged in the centuries after the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, and Wales is regarded as one of the modern Celtic nations today. Gruffydd ap Llywelyn was recognised as King of Wales in 1057. Llywelyn ap Gruffydd's death in 1282 marked the completion of Edward I of England's conquest of Wales. The castles and town walls erected to ensure its permanence are now UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Owain Glyndŵr briefly restored independence to what was to become modern Wales, in the early 15th century. Wales was subsequently annexed by England under the Laws in Wales Acts 1535–1542 since when, excluding those matters now devolved to Wales, English law has been the legal system of Wales and England. Distinctive Welsh politics developed in the 19th century. Welsh Liberalism, exemplified in the early 20th century by Lloyd George, was displaced by the growth of socialism and the Labour Party. Welsh national feeling grew over the century; Plaid Cymru was formed in 1925 and The Welsh Language Society in 1962. The National Assembly for Wales, created in 1999 following a referendum, holds responsibility for a range of devolved policy matters.
  
  wn.com/Wales
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  Whitby
  Coordinates: 54°29′09″N 0°37′14″W / 54.4858°N 0.6206°W / 54.4858; -0.6206
  Whitby is a seaside town, port and civil parish in the Scarborough borough of North Yorkshire, England. Situated on the east coast of Yorkshire at the mouth of the River Esk, Whitby has a combined maritime, mineral and tourist heritage, and is home to the ruins of Whitby Abbey where Caedmon, the earliest English poet, lived. The fishing port emerged during the Middle Ages and developed important herring and whaling fleets, and was where Captain Cook learned seamanship. Tourism started in Whitby in Georgian times and developed with the coming of the railway in 1839. Tourist interest is enhanced by its location surrounded by the high ground of the North York Moors national park and heritage coastline and by association with the horror novel Dracula. Jet and alum were mined locally, and Whitby jet, which was mined by the Romans and Victorians became fashionable during the 19th century.
  The earliest record of a permanent settlement is in 656, when Streonshal, was the place where Oswy, the Christian king of Northumbria, founded the first abbey, under the abbess, Hilda. The Synod of Whitby was held there in 664. In 867, the monastery was destroyed by Viking raiders, and was re-founded in 1078. It was in this period that the town gained its current name, Whitby, (from "white settlement" in Old Norse). In the following centuries Whitby functioned as a fishing settlement until, in the 18th century, it developed as a port and centre for shipbuilding and whaling, trade in locally mined alum and the manufacture of Whitby jet jewellery.
  
  wn.com/Whitby

• Abraham Van Helsing
  Professor Abraham van Helsing is a fictional character and the protagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
  Van Helsing is a Dutch doctor (with a heavy German accent) with a wide range of interests and accomplishments, partly attested by the string of letters that follows his name: "M.D., D.Ph., D.Litt., etc." The character is best known as a vampire hunter and the archenemy of Count Dracula.
  In the novel, Van Helsing is called in by his former student, Dr. John Seward, to assist with the mysterious illness of Lucy Westenra. Van Helsing's friendship with Seward is based in part upon an unknown prior event in which Van Helsing suffered a grievous wound and Seward saved his life by sucking out the gangrene. It is Van Helsing who first realizes that Lucy is the victim of a vampire and he guides Dr. Seward and his friends in their efforts to save Lucy.
  In the novel, from the annotations of Leonard Wolf, it is mentioned that Van Helsing had a son who died. Van Helsing says that his son, had he lived, would have had a similar appearance to another character, Arthur Holmwood. Consequently, Van Helsing developed a particular fondness of Holmwood. Van Helsing's wife went insane after their son's death, but as a devout Catholic, he refuses to divorce her. ("with my poor wife dead to me, but alive by Church's law, though no wits, all gone, even I, who am faithful husband to this now-no-wife ...")
  
  wn.com/Abraham_Van_Helsing
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  Anthony Hopkins
  Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins, CBE (born 31 December 1937), best known as Anthony Hopkins, is a Welsh actor of film, stage and television, and a composer. Considered to be one of the greatest living actors, Hopkins is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Hannibal Lecter in The Silence of the Lambs. Other prominent film credits include The Lion in Winter, Magic, The Elephant Man, 84 Charing Cross Road, Dracula, Legends of the Fall, The Remains of the Day, Amistad, Nixon, The World's Fastest Indian, and Fracture. Hopkins was born and brought up in Wales. Retaining his British citizenship, he became a U.S. citizen on 12 April 2000. Hopkins' films have spanned a wide variety of genres, from family films to horror. As well as his Academy Award, Hopkins has also won three BAFTA Awards, two Emmys and the Cecil B. DeMille Golden Globe Award. Hopkins was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1993 for services to the arts. He received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 2003, and was made a Fellow of the British Academy of Film and Television Arts in 2008.
  
  wn.com/Anthony_Hopkins
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  Bram Stoker
  Abraham "Bram" Stoker (8 November 1847 – 20 April 1912) was an Irish novelist and short story writer, best known today for his 1897 Gothic novel Dracula. During his lifetime, he was better known as personal assistant of actor Henry Irving and business manager of the Lyceum Theatre in London, which Irving owned.
  Stoker was born on 8 November 1847 at 15 Marino Crescent, Clontarf, on the northside of Dublin, Ireland. His parents were Abraham Stoker (1799–1876), from Dublin, and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley (1818–1901), who came from Ballyshannon, County Donegal. Stoker was the third of seven children. Abraham and Charlotte were members of the Church of Ireland Parish of Clontarf and attended the parish church with their children, who were baptised there.
  Stoker was bed-ridden until he started school at the age of seven, when he made a complete recovery. Of this time, Stoker wrote, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years." He was educated in a private school run by the Rev. William Woods.
  
  wn.com/Bram_Stoker
• Brides of Dracula
  The Brides of Dracula are characters in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula. They are three seductive female vampire "sisters" who reside with Count Dracula in his castle in Transylvania, where they entrance male humans with their beauty and charm, and then proceed to feed upon them. Dracula provides them with victims to devour, mainly infants and children.
  Like Dracula, they are the living dead, repulsed by religious objects. In chapter three of the novel, two are described as dark haired and the other as blonde, though some film adaptations depict them as blonde, brunette and redhead. The Brides of Dracula usually meet their end at the hands of Abraham Van Helsing, whether it be a stake in the heart, decapitation or exposure to sunlight.
  In the novel the three vampire women are not individually named. Collectively, they are known as the 'sisters'.
  Although the three vampire women in Dracula are popularly referred to as the "Brides of Dracula", they are never referred to as such in the novel, instead referred to as the 'sisters'; whether they are married to Dracula or not is never mentioned, nor are they described as having any other relation to him. Though it is mentioned by the sisters that Dracula does not love, nor has he ever loved them, the count himself claims he once loved them in the past. The two dark-haired women, however, are described by Jonathan Harker to have "high aquiline noses, like the Count's". It has been suggested from this that it may have been Stoker's intent that these two are Dracula's daughters, extending the sexuality metaphor of vampirism to incest.
  
  wn.com/Brides_of_Dracula
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  Casper Van Dien
  Casper Robert Van Dien, Jr. (born December 18, 1968) is an American actor.
  Van Dien was born and grew up in Milton, Florida, the son of Diane (née Morrow), a nursery school teacher, and Casper Robert Van Dien, Sr., a U.S. Navy Commander and fighter pilot. There is a long military tradition in Van Dien's family. Aside from his father, his grandfather was a Marine during World War II. Van Dien is descended from an old Dutch family long settled in the New York area; his other heritage includes Swedish, French, English, and Native American.
  The street on which Van Dien grew up in Ridgewood, New Jersey, Van Dien Avenue, was named after his great great grandfather. In high school, Van Dien was often referred to as "Ken doll" due to his good looks, and got into many fights for that reason. Later he was described as a "perfect life-sized Ken doll." When Van Dien was older, his family moved to Florida, where he enrolled at the St. Petersburg campus of the Admiral Farragut Academy, graduating 3rd in command. Next, he went to Florida State University in Tallahassee.
  
  wn.com/Casper_Van_Dien
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  Christopher Plummer
  Arthur Christopher Orme Plummer, CC (born December 13, 1929) is a Canadian theatre, film and television actor. He made his film debut in 1958's Stage Struck, and notable early film performances include The Night of the Generals, The Return of the Pink Panther, and The Man Who Would Be King.
  In a career that spans seven decades and includes substantial roles in each of the dramatic arts, Plummer is probably best known to audiences as the autocratic widower Captain Georg Ludwig von Trapp in the hit 1965 musical film The Sound of Music alongside Julie Andrews. Plummer has also ventured into various television projects, including the legendary miniseries The Thorn Birds.
  His most recent film roles include the The Insider as Mike Wallace, the Disney-Pixar 2009 film Up as Charles Muntz, the Shane Acker production 9 as 1, The Last Station as Leo Tolstoy, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus as Doctor Parnassus, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as Henrik Vanger, and Beginners as Hal.
  Plummer has won numerous awards and accolades for his work, including an Academy Award, two Emmy Awards, two Tony Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a SAG Award, and a BAFTA Award. With his win at the age of 82 in 2012 for Beginners, Plummer is the oldest actor ever to win an Academy Award.
  
  wn.com/Christopher_Plummer
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  Count Dracula
  Count Dracula is the title character and the primary antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. He is described as an archetypal vampire and some aspects of his character have been inspired by the 15th century Romanian general and Wallachian Prince Vlad III the Impaler. The character appears frequently in all manner of popular culture, from films to animated media to breakfast cereals.
  In Bram Stoker's novel, Count Dracula's characteristics, powers, abilities and weaknesses are narrated in a piecemeal way by multiple narrators, from different perspectives. The most informative of these narrators are Jonathan Harker, John Seward, and Mina Harker.
  Count Dracula (a lord of the night)is a centuries-old vampire, sorcerer, and Transylvanian nobleman, who claims to be a Székely descended from Attila the Hun. He inhabits a decaying castle in the Carpathian Mountains near the Borgo Pass. Unlike the vampires of Eastern European folklore, which are portrayed as repulsive, corpse-like creatures, Dracula exudes a veneer of aristocratic charm. In his conversations with Jonathan Harker, he reveals himself as deeply proud of his boyar heritage and nostalgic for the past times, which he admits have become only a memory of heroism, honor and valor in modern times.
  
  wn.com/Count_Dracula
• Count Orlok
  Count Orlok (ger. "Graf Orlok") is a fictional character portrayed by Max Schreck in the silent movie Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens. He was based on Bram Stoker's character, Count Dracula.
  In Nosferatu, Count Orlok is a vampire from Transylvania, and appears to be the haunt of many nightmarish creatures, including a werewolf (which was actually played by a hyena in the film). Orlok, known locally as the eponymous "Nosferatu", is a living corpse also known as "The Bird of Death", which feasts upon the blood of living humans.
  Count Orlok dwells alone in a vast castle hidden among the rugged peaks in a lost corner of the Carpathian Mountains. The castle is swathed in shadows, and is badly neglected with a highly sinister feel to it. He is in league with the housing agent Knock, and wants to purchase a house in Wisborg. Local peasants live in terror of Orlok and never venture out after dark. Thomas Hutter scorns their fears as mere superstition, and ventures to the decrepit castle, however the coach-driver will not take him over the bridge. A black-swathed figure in a black coach (Orlok in disguise) drives him the rest of the way. He is greeted by Orlok, who claims as it is past midnight all his servants have gone to bed, and the two dine together and discuss Orlok's purchasing of a house in the fictional city of Wisborg, Germany. Hutter accidentally cuts his hand when slicing bread and Orlok is barely able to control himself from drinking from Hutter's wound. After Hutter collapses in a chair, Orlok feeds off of him, but this is not shown on screen: Hutter discovers two bites on his neck the next day but is unaware that his host is a vampire.
  
  wn.com/Count_Orlok
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  David Carradine
  David Carradine (born John Arthur Carradine; December 8, 1936 – June 3, 2009) was an American actor and martial artist, best known for his role as a warrior monk, Kwai Chang Caine, in the 1970s television series Kung Fu. He was a member of a productive acting family dynasty that began with his father, John Carradine. His acting career, which included major and minor roles on stage, television and cinema, spanned over four decades. A prolific "B" movie actor, he appeared in more than 100 feature films and was nominated four times for a Golden Globe Award. The last nomination was for his title role in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill.
  Films that featured Carradine continued to be released after his death. These posthumous credits were from a variety of genres including horror, action, western, martial arts, drama, science fiction and documentary. In addition to his acting career, Carradine was also a musician and pursued a directing career. Influenced by his most popular acting role, he studied martial arts. The child of a frequently married actor, "Jack", as Carradine was known in his youth, had an unstable childhood. This instability would continue throughout his life as he himself was married five times. He was also frequently arrested and prosecuted for a variety of offenses which often involved substance abuse. He died on June 3, 2009 of an apparently accidental asphyxiation.
  
  wn.com/David_Carradine
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  David Suchet
  David Suchet, CBE, ( /ˈsuːʃeɪ/ SOO-shay; born 2 May 1946) is an English actor, known for his work on British television. He is recognised for his RTS- and BPG award-winning performance as Augustus Melmotte in the 2001 British TV mini-drama The Way We Live Now, alongside Matthew Macfadyen and Paloma Baeza, and a 1991 British Academy Television Award (BAFTA) nomination.
  He is known for his role as Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot in the long-running British TV dramatic series Agatha Christie's Poirot.
  Suchet's older brother, John Suchet, is a British television presenter and newsreader, and his father was gynaecologist Jack Suchet.
  Suchet was born in London, the son of Joan Patricia (née Jarché; 1916–1992), an actress, and Jack Suchet, who emigrated to England from South Africa in 1932, and trained to be a doctor at St Mary's Hospital, London in 1933. Suchet's father was Lithuanian Jewish and his mother was Anglican (she was of Russian Jewish descent on her own father's side, and of English descent on her mother's side). Suchet was raised without religion, but has been a practising Anglican since 1986, having been confirmed in 2006.
  
  wn.com/David_Suchet
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  Edward Van Sloan
  Edward Van Sloan (November 1, 1882 – March 6, 1964) was an American film character actor best remembered for his roles in Universal Studios horror films.
  Van Sloan's roles date from the 1930s, including Dracula (1931), Frankenstein (1931) and The Mummy (1932). In the first of these, he played Abraham Van Helsing, the famous vampire-hunter, a role he had first taken in the successful touring production of Dracula by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston. He played essentially the same role, this time as Dr. Muller, in The Mummy. He again played Van Helsing (inexplicably renamed 'Von Helsing') in the 1936 film Dracula's Daughter. In Frankenstein, he played the character of Dr. Waldman, but he also stepped in front of a curtain before the film's opening credits to warn audience members that they now had a chance to escape the theatre if they were too squeamish to endure the film.
  Van Sloan had a style of playing horror roles that was unmistakably his, speaking his lines in a slow, exaggerated style of elocution with rolling Rs. His grave is located in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania's Boehm Cemetery.
  
  wn.com/Edward_Van_Sloan
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  Frank Finlay
  Francis Finlay, CBE (born 6 August 1926) is an English stage, film and television actor.
  Finlay was born in Farnworth, Lancashire, the son of Margaret and Josiah Finlay, a butcher. A devout Catholic, he belongs to the British Catholic Stage Guild. He was educated at St. Gregory the Great School but left at the age of fourteen and then trained as a butcher himself, gaining a City and Guilds Diploma in the trade. He met his future wife, Doreen Shepherd, when they were both members of the Farnworth Little Theatre. They had three children, Stephen, Cathy and Daniel and they lived in Shepperton, Middlesex and were married until her death in 2005.
  Finlay began his stage career in rep before graduating from RADA. There followed several appearances at the Royal Court Theatre, notably in the Arnold Wesker trilogy. He is particularly associated with the National Theatre, especially during the Olivier years and the Chichester Festival Theatre, where he played a wide variety of roles ranging from the First Gravedigger in Hamlet to Josef Frank in Weapons of Happiness. He also had parts in The Party, Plunder, Saint Joan, Hobson's Choice, "Amadeus", Much Ado About Nothing (as Dogberry), The Dutch Courtesan, The Crucible, Mother Courage, and Juno and the Paycock.
  
  wn.com/Frank_Finlay
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  Gene Colan
  Eugene Jules "Gene" Colan (September 1, 1926 – June 23, 2011) was an American comic book artist best known for his work for Marvel Comics, where his signature titles include the superhero series, Daredevil, the cult-hit satiric series Howard the Duck, and The Tomb of Dracula, considered one of comics' classic horror series. He co-created the Falcon, the first African-American superhero in mainstream comics, and the non-costumed, supernatural African-American character Blade, which went on to star in a series of films starring Wesley Snipes.
  Colan was inducted into the Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005.
  Born in The Bronx, New York City, New York, the son of parents who ran an antiques business on the Upper East Side, Gene Colan began drawing at age three. "The first thing I ever drew was a lion. I must've absolutely copied it or something. But that's what my folks tell me. And from then on, I just drew everything in sight. My grandfather was my favorite subject". Among his earliest influences, he said in 2001, were the Coulton Waugh adventure comic strip Dickie Dare "in The New York Sun. I was influenced by the style, or the story. Mostly the story. I took it very seriously." He moved with his family "at about age 4" to Long Beach, New York, on Long Island. Later, he would try to copy artist Norman Rockwell's covers to The Saturday Evening Post. Other major art influences were comics artists Syd Shores and Milton Caniff. Colan attended George Washington High School in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan, and went on to study at the Art Students League of New York.
  
  wn.com/Gene_Colan
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  Geraint Wyn Davies
  Geraint Wyn Davies (pronunciation: GER-īnt, b. April 20, 1957, Swansea, United Kingdom) is a Welsh-Canadian-American actor.
  He was born on 20 April 1957 in Wales, at Swansea. He was the son of a Congregationalist preacher. At the age of seven he moved with his family from Haverfordwest to Canada; where he attended Upper Canada College and then the University of Western Ontario, where he studied economics before dropping out to pursue an acting career.
  His most famous role is that of vampire-turned-police-detective, Nick Knight, on Forever Knight. Before this he had also played a vampire in Dracula: The Series.
  His recent television roles include 24 in early 2006, as James Nathanson and ReGenesis in 2008 as Carleton Riddlemeyer. He also played cyber-terrorist David Kaydick in RoboCop: Prime Directives, and also portrayed maverick U.S. Air Force pilot Mike Rivers in the final season of Airwolf. He played Nick Haskell on the Canadian series Black Harbour, and Henry Breedlove in the second season of Slings and Arrows. His more recent films include Some Things That Stay (2004), The Wild Dogs (2002) and Cube 2: Hypercube (2002)
  
  wn.com/Geraint_Wyn_Davies
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  Gerard Butler
  Gerard James Butler (born 13 November 1969) is a Scottish actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television. A trained lawyer, Butler turned to acting in the mid-1990s with small roles in productions such as the James Bond film Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), which he followed with steady work on television, most notably in the American miniseries Attila (2001). He garnered critical acclaim for his work as the lead in Joel Schumacher's 2004 film adaptation of the musical The Phantom of the Opera. In 2007, Butler gained recognition through his portrayal of King Leonidas in the film 300. Since then, he has appeared in projects including P.S. I Love You (2007), Nim's Island (2008), RocknRolla (2008), The Ugly Truth (2009), Gamer (2009), Law Abiding Citizen (2009), The Bounty Hunter (2010), and as a voice actor in How to Train Your Dragon (2010).
  Butler was born in Paisley, which is in Renfrewshire, Scotland, the youngest of three children of Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. Of Irish descent, he was brought up in a strict Roman Catholic family. Butler spent the first few years of his life in Montreal, Quebec, before the family returned to live in Scotland.
  
  wn.com/Gerard_Butler
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  Giancarlo Giannini
  Giancarlo Giannini (Italian pronunciation: [dʒanˈkarlo dʒanˈnini]; born 1 August 1942) is an Italian actor and dubber.
  Giannini was born in La Spezia, Liguria, Italy. He studied at the Accademia Nazionale d'Arte Drammatica in Rome, and made his film debut in a small part in Fango sulla metropoli in 1965. He appeared in supporting roles in Anzio and The Secret of Santa Vittoria, and starred in the original version of Swept Away. In 1971, he appeared in E le stelle stanno a guardare, a television adaptation of A. J. Cronin's novel, The Stars Look Down.
  In 1976, he starred in Seven Beauties, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor, which is unusual in that his performance was given entirely in Italian. He dubbed Jack Nicholson's voice in the Italian release of both The Shining and Batman; he is the official Italian dubber of Al Pacino. His fluency in English has brought him a number of featured roles in Hollywood productions, most notably as Inspector Pazzi in Hannibal. He has also appeared in Man on Fire.
  
  wn.com/Giancarlo_Giannini
• Herbert Lom
  Herbert Lom (Czech pronunciation: [ɦɛrbɛrd lom]; born 11 September 1917) is a Czech-born actor who has been based in the U.K. since 1939. In a career lasting more than sixty years, he was used in character roles, often villains early in his career, but later portrayed professional men. He is best known for his role as (former) Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in the Pink Panther movie series.
  Lom was born Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchacevich von Schluderpacheru in Prague to upper-class parents Olga (née Gottlieb) and Charles. His father was a count whose title dated from 1601. Lom's film debut was in the Czech film Žena pod křížem. His early film appearances were mainly supporting roles, with the occasional top billing.
  Lom moved to England in January 1939. He made numerous appearances in British films throughout the 1940s, usually in villainous roles, although he later appeared in comedies as well. He managed to escape being typecast as a European heavy by securing a diverse range of castings, including as Napoleon Bonaparte in The Young Mr. Pitt (1942), and again in the 1956 version of War and Peace. He secured a seven-picture Hollywood contract after World War II but was unable to obtain an American visa for 'political reasons'. In a rare starring role, Lom played twin trapeze artists in Dual Alibi (1946). In 1952, he starred as the King of Siam in the original London production of The King and I and can be heard on the cast recording. Later in the decade he appeared opposite Alec Guinness and Peter Sellers in The Ladykillers (1955), and with Robert Mitchum, Jack Lemmon and Rita Hayworth in Fire Down Below (1957).
  
  wn.com/Herbert_Lom
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  Hugh Jackman
  Hugh Michael Jackman (born 12 October 1968) is an Australian actor and producer who is involved in film, musical theatre, and television.
  Jackman has won international recognition for his roles in major films, notably as action/superhero, period and romance characters. He is known for his role as Wolverine in the X-Men film series, as well as for his leads in Kate & Leopold, Van Helsing, The Prestige, Australia, and Real Steel. Jackman is a singer, dancer, and actor in stage musicals, and won a Tony Award for his role in The Boy from Oz.
  In November 2008, Open Salon named Jackman one of the sexiest men alive. Later that same month, People magazine named Jackman "Sexiest Man Alive."
  A three-time host of the Tony Awards, winning an Emmy Award for one of these appearances, Jackman also hosted the 81st Academy Awards on 22 February 2009.
  Jackman was born in Sydney, New South Wales, the youngest of five children of English parents Chris Jackman and Grace Watson, and the second child to be born in Australia (he also has a younger half-sister, from his mother's re-marriage). One of his paternal great-grandfathers was Greek. His parents divorced when he was eight, and he remained with his accountant father and siblings, while his mother moved back to England. As a child, Jackman liked the outdoors, spending a lot of time at the beach and on camping trips and vacations all over Australia. He wanted to see the world: "I used to spend nights looking at atlases. I decided I wanted to be a chef on a plane. Because I'd been on a plane and there was food on board, I presumed there was a chef. I thought that would be an ideal job."
  
  wn.com/Hugh_Jackman
• Jack Gwillim
  Jack William Frederick Gwillim (15 December 1909 – 2 July 2001) was a prolific English character actor.
  Born in Canterbury, Kent, England, he served in the Royal Navy for over twenty years, attaining the rank of Commander. During his time in the Navy, he became a champion boxer and rugby player, and when he was discharged he was one of the youngest men ever to obtain the rank of Commander in the Royal Navy. Gwillim began his acting career in earnest in the 1950s, working on both stage and screen. On stage, he appeared both at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford and at the Old Vic. He performed in an extensive amount of theatre, both classics and modern plays, in the West End of London and on Broadway.
  Some of his most notable roles include: playing in Sir Ralph Richardson's production of The Merchant of Venice; The Right Honourable Gentleman with lifelong friend Anthony Quayle; a revival of My Fair Lady with Rex Harrison, playing Colonel Pickering; John Gielgud's The Constant Wife, with Ingrid Bergman; and The Iceman Cometh, with James Earl Jones.
  
  wn.com/Jack_Gwillim
• 
  Jack the Ripper
  "Jack the Ripper" is the best-known name given to an unidentified serial killer who was active in the largely impoverished areas in and around the Whitechapel district of London in 1888. The name originated in a letter, written by someone claiming to be the murderer, that was disseminated in the media. The letter is widely believed to have been a hoax, and may have been written by a journalist in a deliberate attempt to heighten interest in the story. Other nicknames used for the killer at the time were "The Whitechapel Murderer" and "Leather Apron".
  Attacks ascribed to the Ripper typically involved female prostitutes from the slums whose throats were cut prior to abdominal mutilations. The removal of internal organs from at least three of the victims led to proposals that their killer possessed anatomical or surgical knowledge. Rumours that the murders were connected intensified in September and October 1888, and letters from a writer or writers purporting to be the murderer were received by media outlets and Scotland Yard. The "From Hell" letter, received by George Lusk of the Whitechapel Vigilance Committee, included half of a preserved human kidney, supposedly from one of the victims. Mainly because of the extraordinarily brutal character of the murders, and because of media treatment of the events, the public came increasingly to believe in a single serial killer known as "Jack the Ripper".
  
  wn.com/Jack_the_Ripper
• 
  Joanna Lumley
  Joanna Lamond Lumley, OBE, FRGS (born 1 May 1946) is a British actress, voice-over artist, former-model and author, best known for her roles in British television series Absolutely Fabulous portraying Edina Monsoon's best friend, Patsy Stone, as well as parts in The New Avengers, Sapphire & Steel, and Sensitive Skin. Her distinctive voice has been supplied for animated characters, film narration, and AOL's "You have email" notification in the UK. She has spoken out as a human rights activist for Survival International and the Gurkha Justice Campaign, and is now considered a "national treasure" of Nepal because of her support. She is an advocate for a number of charities and animal welfare groups such as CIWF and Viva! She has won three BAFTA awards and a British Comedy Award.
  Joanna Lamond Lumley was born on 1 May 1946 in Srinagar, in the princely state of Kashmir and Jammu, which was then part of British India. Her parents were Major James Rutherford Lumley, who served in the 6th Gurkha Rifles, a regiment of the British Indian Army, and Beatrice Rose Weir. They married in 1941. After the independence of India in 1947, the Lumleys relocated back to their home country of England^{[citation needed]}; county Kent. The family also spent time in Malaya (now Malaysia). Lumley was educated at St Mary's Convent School in St Leonards-on-Sea, East Sussex, England, and afterwards attended the Lucie Clayton finishing school, after being turned down by the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art at the age of 16.
  
  wn.com/Joanna_Lumley
• John Gottowt
  John Gottowt (15 June 1881 – 29 August 1942) was a German actor, stage director and film director for theatres and silent movies.
  He was born as Isidor Gesang in Lemberg, Austria-Hungary. After his education in Vienna, he joined the Deutsches Theater in Berlin in 1905, working for Max Reinhardt as an actor and director. Gottowt was mainly active in different theatres in Berlin as a character actor and director.
  His first silent film appearance was in Paul Wegener’s Der Student von Prag ("The Student of Prague") (1913). In 1920 he appeared in Robert Wiene's Genuine and took the main role in the early science fiction film Algol ("Algol: Tragedy of Power"). In 1921 he played Professor Bulwer (Abraham van Helsing) in the classic silent film Nosferatu directed by F.W. Murnau.
  Gottowt made also several films with his brother-in-law Henrik Galeen but, as a Jew, was banned in 1933 from working as a professional actor. After a few years in Denmark he moved to Kraków in Poland. He was murdered in 1942 by the SS in Wieliczka.
  
  wn.com/John_Gottowt
• Jonathan Harker
  Jonathan Harker is a fictional character and one of the protagonists of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula. His journey to Transylvania and encounter with Count Dracula and the Brides of Dracula at Castle Dracula constitutes the dramatic opening scenes in the novel and most of the film adaptations.
  Harker is a recently admitted solicitor from England, who is deputed by his employer, Mr. Hawkins, to act as an estate agent for a foreign client named Count Dracula who wishes to move to England. Harker discovers in Carfax Abbey, near Purfleet, Essex, a dwelling which suits the client's requirements and travels to Transylvania by train in order to consult with him about it.
  At Bistritz Harker takes a coach to the Borgo Pass where at midnight another coach drawn by four black horses, waits to take him to Castle Dracula high in the Carpathian Mountains. At the castle Harker is greeted by the mysterious and ominous Count Dracula and finalises the property transaction. Soon, however Harker realises he has been made a prisoner by his host who is revealed as a vampire. Harker also has a dangerous encounter with the three seductive Brides of Dracula, whose designs on him are only thwarted by the intervention of the Count.
  
  wn.com/Jonathan_Harker
• 
  Kim Newman
  Kim Newman (born 31 July 1959) is an English journalist, film critic, and fiction writer. Recurring interests visible in his work include film history and horror fiction—both of which he attributes to seeing Tod Browning's Dracula at the age of eleven—and alternate fictional versions of history. He has won the Bram Stoker Award, the International Horror Guild Award, and the BSFA award.
  Newman was born in London and was raised in Aller, Somerset. He was educated at Dr. Morgan's Grammar School in Bridgwater, and set his experimental semi-autobiographical novel Life's Lottery (1999) in a fictionalised version of the town called Sedgwater. He studied English at the University of Sussex.
  Early in his career, Newman was a journalist on the City Limits listings magazine and Knave.
  Newman's first two books were both non-fiction; Ghastly Beyond Belief: The Science Fiction and Fantasy Book of Quotations (1985), co-written with his friend Neil Gaiman, is a light-hearted tribute to entertainingly bad prose in fantastic fiction, and Nightmare Movies: A critical history of the horror film, 1968-88 (1988) is a serious history of horror films. An expanded edition, bringing his overview of post-1968 genre cinema up to date, was published in 2011.
  
  wn.com/Kim_Newman
• 
  Laurence Olivier
  Laurence Kerr Olivier, Baron Olivier, OM ( /ˈlɒrəns ɵˈlɪvi.eɪ/; 22 May 1907 – 11 July 1989) was an English actor, director, and producer. One of the most famous and revered actors of the 20th century, he was the youngest actor to be knighted and the first to be elevated to the peerage. He married three times, to actresses Jill Esmond, Vivien Leigh, and Joan Plowright. Actor Spencer Tracy said that Olivier was 'the greatest actor in the English-speaking world'.
  Olivier played a wide variety of roles on stage and screen from Greek tragedy, Shakespeare and Restoration comedy to modern American and British drama. He was the first artistic director of the National Theatre of Great Britain and its main stage is named in his honour. He is regarded by some to be the greatest actor of the 20th century, in the same category as David Garrick, Richard Burbage, Edmund Kean and Henry Irving in their own centuries. Olivier's AMPAS acknowledgments are considerable: twelve Oscar nominations, with two awards (for Best Actor and Best Picture for the 1948 film Hamlet), plus two honorary awards including a statuette and certificate. He was also awarded five Emmy awards from the nine nominations he received. Additionally, he was a three-time Golden Globe and BAFTA winner.
  
  wn.com/Laurence_Olivier
• Leonard Wolf
  Leonard Wolf is a poet, author, teacher, and the father of Naomi Wolf. He is known for his authoritative annotated editions of classic gothic horror novels, including Dracula, Frankenstein, The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, and The Phantom of the Opera, and critical works on the topic, as well as translations from Yiddish of works ranging from those of Isaac Bashevis Singer to Winnie the Pooh.
  Born in Vulcan, Romania (Transylvania), Leonard was originally named 'Ludovic', changed upon his arrival in the United States in 1930 with his mother, Rose-ita, and older brother, Maxim. He wrote and published numerous poems, short stories, book reviews and articles, and was part of the Berkeley Renaissance of the late 1940s and 1950s. He was a professor of English at San Francisco State University (SFSU) until moving to New York around 1980, focussing on teaching poetry. He is the author of several books including A Dream of Dracula, Blood Thirst, 100 Years of Vampire Fiction (editor), Bluebeard : The Life and Crimes of Gilles De Rais, Doubles, Dummies and Dolls : Twenty-One Terror Tales of Replication (editor), Dracula : the Connoisseur's Guide, False Messiah, Horror - A Connoisseur's Guide To Literature And Film, Monsters: Twenty Terrible and Wonderful Beasts From The Classic Dragon And Colossal Minotaur To King Kong And The Great Godzilla, Quiromancia/ Chiromancy, The False Messiah, Voices from the love generation (Little, Brown, 1968), The Glass Mountain: A Novel (Overlook Press, 1993), The Passion of Israel [By] Leonard Wolf. Interviews Taken and Edited in Collaboration with Deborah Wolf, Wolf s Complete Book of Terror (editor), and Vini-Der-Pu: A Yiddish Translation of Winnie the Pooh (Dutton 2000).
  
  wn.com/Leonard_Wolf
• 
  Mel Brooks
  Mel Brooks (born Melvin Kaminsky; June 28, 1926) is an American film director, screenwriter, composer, lyricist, comedian, actor and producer. He is best known as a creator of broad film farces and comic parodies. He began his career as a stand-up comic and as a writer for the early TV variety show Your Show of Shows. He became well known as part of the comedy duo with Carl Reiner, The 2000 Year Old Man. In middle age he became one of the most successful film directors of the 1970s, with many of his films being among the top ten money makers of the year that they were released. His most well known films include The Producers, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein, History of the World, Part I and Spaceballs. More recently he has had a smash hit on Broadway with the musical adaptation of his first film, The Producers. He was married to the actress Anne Bancroft from 1964 until her death in 2005.
  Brooks is a member of the short list of entertainers with the distinction of having won an Emmy, a Grammy, an Oscar and a Tony award. Three of his films ranked in the American Film Institute's list of the top 100 comedy films of all-time: Blazing Saddles at number 6, The Producers at number 11, and Young Frankenstein at number 13.
  
  wn.com/Mel_Brooks
• Mina Harker
  Wilhelmina "Mina" Harker (née Murray) is a fictional character from Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
  She begins the story as Miss Mina Murray, a young school mistress who is engaged to Jonathan Harker, and best friends with Lucy Westenra. She visits Lucy in Whitby on July 24 of that year, when schools would have closed for the summer.
  After her fiancé Jonathan escapes from Count Dracula's castle, Mina travels to Budapest and joins him there. Mina cares for him during his recovery from his traumatic encounter with the vampire and his brides, and the two return to England as husband and wife. Back home, they learn that Lucy has died from a mysterious illness stemming from severe blood loss as the result of repeated attacks by an unknown, blood-drinking animal; — the animal, they learn, was none other than Dracula taking a different shape.
  Mina and Jonathan join the coalition around Abraham Van Helsing, and turn their attentions to destroying the Count. After Dracula learns of this plot against him, he takes revenge by visiting — and biting — Mina at least three times. Dracula also feeds Mina his blood, destining her to become a vampire at her death. The rest of the novel deals with the group's efforts to spare her this fate by killing Dracula. Mina slowly succumbs to the blood of the vampire that flows through her veins, switching back and forth from a state of consciousness to a state of semi-trance during which she is telepathically connected with Dracula. Mina then uses her inherent telepathic abilities to track Dracula's movements.
  
  wn.com/Mina_Harker
• Nigel Davenport
  Nigel Davenport (born 23 May 1928) is an English stage, television and film actor.
  Davenport was born Arthur Nigel Davenport, however he goes by the first name of Nigel. Davenport was born in Shelford, Cambridgeshire, the son of Katherine Lucy (née Meiklejohn) and Arthur Henry Davenport. Davenport's father was a bursar at Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. He grew up in an academic family. He was educated at St Peter's School, Seaford, Cheltenham College and Trinity College, Oxford, originally to study Philosophy, Politics and Economics but switching to English on the advice of his tutors, which he claims he hadn't realised for himself at the time.
  
  wn.com/Nigel_Davenport
• Peter Cushing
  Peter Wilton Cushing, OBE (26 May 1913 – 11 August 1994) was an English actor, known for his many appearances in Hammer Films, in which he played the distinguished-looking but sinister scientist Baron Frankenstein and the vampire hunter Dr. Van Helsing, amongst many other roles, often appearing opposite Christopher Lee, and occasionally Vincent Price. A familiar face on both sides of the Atlantic, his most famous roles outside of "Hammer Horror" include his many appearances as Sherlock Holmes, as Grand Moff Tarkin in Star Wars (1977) and as the mysterious Doctor in Dr. Who and the Daleks and Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD in 1965 and 1966, two cinema films based on the television series Doctor Who.
  Cushing was born in Kenley, Surrey, a son of George Edward Cushing and Nellie Marie (King) Cushing. He was brought up in Kenley and in Dulwich, South London. Cushing left his first job as a surveyor's assistant to take a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. After working in repertory theatre in Worthing, Sussex, he left for Hollywood in 1939, debuting in The Man in the Iron Mask, then returned in 1941 after roles in several films. In one, A Chump at Oxford (1940), he appeared alongside Laurel and Hardy. His first major film part was as Osric in Laurence Olivier's Hamlet (1948).
  
  wn.com/Peter_Cushing
• 
  Peter Fonda
  Peter Henry Fonda (born February 23, 1940) is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda is an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s.
  Fonda was born in New York City, the only son of actor Henry Fonda and his wife Frances Ford Seymour; he is the younger brother of actress Jane Fonda.
  On his eleventh birthday, he accidentally shot himself in the stomach and nearly died. Years later, he would reference this incident to John Lennon and George Harrison while taking LSD with The Beatles, and claiming "I know what it's like to be dead", which ended up becoming a direct inspiration for The Beatles song "She Said, She Said".
  Early on, Fonda studied acting in Omaha, Nebraska, his father's home town. While attending the University of Nebraska at Omaha, Fonda joined the Omaha Community Playhouse, where many actors (including his father and Marlon Brando) had begun their careers.
  
  wn.com/Peter_Fonda
• 
  Queen Victoria
  Queen Victoria (Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India.
  Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn, the fourth son of King George III. Both the Duke of Kent and the King died in 1820, and Victoria was raised under close supervision by her German-born mother Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. She inherited the throne at the age of 18, after her father's three elder brothers had all died without surviving legitimate issue. The United Kingdom was already an established constitutional monarchy, in which the Sovereign held relatively few direct political powers. Privately, she attempted to influence government policy and ministerial appointments. Publicly, she became a national icon, and was identified with strict standards of personal morality.
  She married her first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in 1840. Their nine children and 26 of their 34 grandchildren who survived childhood married into royal and noble families across the continent, tying them together and earning her the nickname "the grandmother of Europe". After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond Jubilees were times of public celebration.
  
  wn.com/Queen_Victoria
• Renfield
  R. M. Renfield is a fictional character and the secondary antagonist of Bram Stoker's 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula.
  A description of Renfield from the novel:
  R. M. Renfield, aetat 59. Sanguine temperament, great physical strength, morbidly excitable, periods of gloom, ending in some fixed idea which I cannot make out. I presume that the sanguine temperament itself and the disturbing influence end in a mentally-accomplished finish, a possibly dangerous man, probably dangerous if unselfish. In selfish men, caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal. When duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it. — From Dr. John Seward's journal
  He is an inmate at the lunatic asylum overseen by Dr. John Seward. He suffers from delusions which compel him to eat living creatures in the hope of obtaining their life-force for himself. He starts by consuming flies, then develops a scheme of feeding the flies to spiders, and the spiders to birds, in order to accumulate more and more life. When denied a cat to accommodate the birds, he eats the birds himself. He also changes his ideas to accommodate Mina Harker by quickly eating all flies and stating that it was an old habit. Doctor John Seward diagnoses him as a "zoophagous maniac".
  
  wn.com/Renfield
• 
  Richard Benjamin
  Richard Benjamin (born May 22, 1938) is an American actor and film director. He has starred in a number of productions, including Goodbye, Columbus (1969), based on the novella by Philip Roth, and Westworld (1973), and directed, among other films, the 1982 film My Favorite Year.
  Benjamin was born in New York City, New York, the son of a garment industry worker. He attended the High School of Performing Arts and graduated from Northwestern University, where he was involved in many plays and studied in the Northwestern theater school.
  He married actress Paula Prentiss on October 26, 1961; and they have two children. They appeared together in the short-lived television series He & She (1967–68) and the film Catch-22 (1970). In 1978, he starred in the ambitious, but short-lived, television series Quark.
  Benjamin starred in Goodbye, Columbus (1969), based on the novella by Philip Roth. After appearing with a star-studded cast in the Mike Nichols film (1970) version of another best-seller, Catch-22, he starred in Diary of a Mad Housewife, The Marriage of a Young Stockbroker, and yet another film based on a famous Roth novel, Portnoy's Complaint (1972), in the title role.
  
  wn.com/Richard_Benjamin
• Robin Stewart
  Robin Stewart is an English actor who is best known for playing Mike Abbott in the 1970s sitcom Bless This House.
  He acted on television and in feature films in both the UK and Australia. Some of his UK film roles include The Haunted House of Horror as Henry, and The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires as Leyland Van Helsing.
  He played the main role of Mike Abbott in sit-com series Bless This House its entire 1971–76 run, but was not cast in the role for the film version; the part going to Robin Askwith. After moving to Australia he had a stint acting in Australian soap operas The Young Doctors as a villanous character trying to silence a blind patient who had overheard his criminal acts, and Sons and Daughters as the villanous doctor Ross Newman.
  Other roles in Australia include a lead role in sex comedy feature film Pacific Banana (1981), and an appearance in prison based soap opera Punishment (1981). He was also for a time the host of an Australian version of the well known television talent show Opportunity Knocks.
  
  wn.com/Robin_Stewart
• 
  Stephanie Beacham
  Stephanie Beacham (born 28 February 1947) is a British television, film and theatre actress. Making her film debut in 1971's The Nightcomers opposite Marlon Brando and becoming more well-known on British television in the BBC series Tenko (1981–84) and the ITV series Connie (1985), her worldwide breakthrough came as a result of playing the very bitchy and very rich Sable Colby in the ABC series The Colbys (1985–87) and in the final season of Dynasty (1988–89).
  Beacham, one of four children, was born in Barnet, Hertfordshire, England, the daughter of Joan, a housewife, and a father who was an insurance executive and the managing director of the Grosvenor estate.
  Shortly after birth, she was diagnosed as being completely deaf in her right ear, as her mother had contracted chickenpox during her pregnancy.^{[citation needed]} She has about 75% of normal hearing capacity in her left ear.^{[citation needed]} She attended a Catholic girls' school (although she was not brought up as a Catholic) and later travelled to Boulogne-Billancourt in Paris, France to study mime with Étienne Decroux, before attending Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) in London.^{[citation needed]}
  
  wn.com/Stephanie_Beacham
• 
  Vlad the Impaler
  Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (1431–1476), also known by his patronymic name Dracula (son of the Dragon, after his father Vlad II Dracul), and posthumously dubbed Vlad the Impaler (Romanian: Vlad Țepeș pronounced [ˈvlad ˈt͡sepeʃ]), was a three-time Voivode of Wallachia, ruling mainly from 1456 to 1462, the period of the incipient Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. His father was a member of the Order of the Dragon (Dracul) which was founded to protect Christianity in Europe.
  Vlad III spent much of his rule campaigning against the Ottoman Empire and its expansion. As the cognomen 'The Impaler' suggests, his practice of impaling his enemies is central to his historical reputation. During his lifetime, his reputation for excessive cruelty spread abroad, to Germany and elsewhere in Europe. The total number of his victims is estimated in the tens of thousands. The name of the vampire Count Dracula in Bram Stoker's 1897 novel Dracula was inspired by Vlad's patronymic.
  During his life Vlad wrote his name in Latin documents as Wladislaus Dragwlya, vaivoda partium Transalpinarum (1475).
  
  wn.com/Vlad_the_Impaler
• Walter Ladengast
  Walter Ladengast (4 July 1899 – 3 July 1980) was an Austrian film actor. He appeared in 72 films between 1928 and 1979.
  He was born in Vienna, Austria and died in Munich, Germany.
  
  wn.com/Walter_Ladengast

Van Helsing (2004)

Actors

• Hugh Jackman
• Richard Roxburgh
• Shuler Hensley
• Elena Anaya
• Kevin J. O'Connor
• Alun Armstrong
• Silvia Colloca
• Josie Maran
• Tom Fisher
• Samuel West
• David Wenham
• Kate Beckinsale
• Robbie Coltrane
• Stephen Fisher
• Will Kemp

Director

• Stephen Sommers

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