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DRACULA’S LAST HURRAH

Part 1

By Frank J. Dello Stritto & Andi Brooks

{The interviews transcribed below were conducted by the authors in preparing their book, Vampire Over London – Bela Lugosi in Britain, which Cult Movies Press is now proud to offer.}

In 1931, Bela Lugosi became world famous playing Count Dracula in the now classic film.  He became forever linked to his great portrayal, and stereotyped as a movie monster and mad doctor.  He would never escape the shadow of Dracula.

In 1951, with horror films out of fashion and 68 year-old Lugosi all but out of work, he and his wife Lillian went to England to star in a stage production of Dracula.  Their hope was to bring Dracula to London’s West End, in a revival that would propel Lugosi back to stardom.

The comeback never happened, and eight months later the Lugosis returned to America, bitterly disappointed.  More than disappointment plagued Bela.  He had aged markedly through 1951, and had increasing difficulty hearing and remembering dialogue.  Attacks from leg pains sapped his strength, and increased his reliance on painkillers.  Thanks to his New York-based, British-born agent, Richard Gordon, Lugosi did make a movie while in England, Mother Riley Meets The Vampire.  But otherwise, his months in Britain seem to have been wasted.  And in time, forgotten.

The story that grew around Lugosi’s 1951 Dracula told only of failure.  The production was allegedly under-funded, and run by amateurs who hoped Lugosi’s name alone would bring success.  After some clumsy delays, Dracula opened, flopped and closed.  Lugosi was never paid; and he and Lillian were stranded in England until the Mother Riley film gave him the cash to return home.  End of story.

Not quite—for the myth did not match the few facts available.  Clippings files in libraries and private collections showed that the 1951 Dracula had played in various cities in Britain over many weeks.  Playbills turn up at memorabilia fairs, as do the postcard-size photo portraits, autographed in blood-red ink, that Bela handed out to his British fans.  Memoirs and histories of post-war British theatre mention the 1951 tour.  And how did the Lugosis, with no bankroll, support themselves for the many months between the supposed collapse of the theatre tour and the start of filming of Mother Riley Meets The Vampire?

The inconsistencies intrigued us.  In 1992 Andi began gathering information on Lugosi’s three visits to Britain (1935 to film Mystery of the Mary Celeste, 1939 to film Dark Eyes of London, in addition to 1951).  Frank joined him 1996, and we soon realized the truth about 1951.  Dracula never reached the West End, or was never more than a provincial theatre tour, but it was not a failure.  In 229 performances in 22 different cities, Dracula played to generally excellent reviews and enthusiastic audience receptions.  The 1951 Dracula was Lugosi’s last hurrah in the role.  He would never play the part again, would never be able to tour on stage again.  Age and ill health firmly held him in their grip, and but once or twice a night, for many weeks, he could cheat time and again become the figure of Hollywood legend.  The effort took a terrible toll on him; and in his mind, a toll that went unrewarded.  But in his life story, 1951 belongs with his great achievements.

To tell the full story of 1951, we had to find with those who shared the experience with the Lugosis, those who travelled across Britain with them.  Playbills and newspapers gave us about a dozen names of persons involved in the tour.  The older members of the cast and company—Arthur Hosking and Ralph Wilson who both played Van Helsing, David Dawson who played Seward, Alfred Beale the tour’s business manager—were believed deceased.  But many of the company were in the 20s in 1951: Richard Butler and John Martin (the two Jonathan Harkers), Eric Lindsay (Renfield), Sheila Wynn (Lucy), Joan Winmill and Joan Harding (both played Wells, the maid), John Saunders (Butterworth), the backstage crew who were also ready understudies: Peter Whelpton, Janet Gray, Janet Reid and Ann Coupland.  Even the director and producers were young men in 1951.  Some of them could almost certainly be located.  

So, our search began.  In the 1990s, none of them were well known in the theatre world. Most had common family names, and telephone directories contained listed dozens, if not hundreds, of names that could be the people we sought. 

Andi contacted Actor’s Equity in London for the addresses of any members of the Dracula company still listed with them.  In the mid-1990s, three of Lugosi’s 1951 co-stars Richard Butler, John Martin and Eric Lindsay were still active performers.

*          *          *

On July 4, 1996, Andi interviewed Richard Butler at the National Theatre in London.  Richard’s acting career began at age 12, in his native Yorkshire in a stage version of Charlotte Brontë’s Shirley.  Thereafter, Richard appeared in many plays, most notably in a West End revival and touring production of Charley’s Aunt.  Early 1951 was a tough period for stage performers in Britain, and Richard supported himself as best he could between acting jobs:

Andi Brooks: How did you get the role of Jonathan Harker in Dracula?

Richard Butler: I was simply called by my agent to go for an audition.  I went and I got it.  At the time I was doing a stint at Walls’ Ice Cream factory in Acton, a temporary job, to earn some money.  I remember going from my night shift to this audition and I got the job.  But it wasn’t due to start for another couple of weeks so I stayed on, very nobly stayed on, at the ice cream factory, knee-deep in ice cream for another two weeks and (laughing) I’ve never been back to an ice cream factory.

AB: Was it an exciting prospect to be playing with Bela?

RB:Oh yes, because, let’s face it, I was in the ice cream factory.  Although I had done an awful lot before I went there, it was one of those long periods of unemployment that all actors have.I’d done better work, much better work, than Dracula, but I took the job because it paid money.  I’d much rather work than not work.

AB: Were you familiar with Bela’s films or the novel?

RB: Yes, the films, I certainly was.  I’d seen Ninotchka then, you must have seen it?  I think he’s marvellous in that, that’s the true Bela.  I don’t think that I was terribly familiar with the novel, but, you know, one sort of knew it.

AB: How long did you have to rehearse before Bela arrived from America?

RB: He came there at once!  We probably didn’t rehearse more than…certainly no more than three weeks.  We might have rehearsed for as little as two weeks, but I really can’t remember.

AB: Do you recall where rehearsals took place?

RB: They took place in London, though I’m not certain of the exact location.  It would certainly have been in the West End.  I have an idea it was somewhere near the Embankment in Chelsea.

AB: It has been claimed that Bela was so unhappy with the production that the premiere was held up because he demanded changes.

RB: I don’t think that happened.  He was never disloyal to the management.  He never said “Oh, this shouldn’t happen to me at my time of life,” nothing like that.  He just accepted things, and he really did his very best.  I’ve worked with people who haven’t really done their best at every performance because it’s been a matinee or there have been few people in, things like that.  But he had the very highest standards.  Bela kept his dignity throughout and never criticised or complained.  I do, however, remember that, talking to us youngsters during rehearsal break one day, he said—“I’m over here to do this show because I can’t get work in films these days.  Some time ago, both Boris Karloff and I realized the skids were under us…so we take what work we can get.”  We were visited at the dress rehearsal and first night by Megs Jenkins, a very well-known actress.  She gave invaluable help to Sheila Wynn with her hair-do, make-up and costume.  We had no wardrobe mistress as far as I can remember, and we had to fend for ourselves.  Megs Jenkins, incidentally, was married to George Routledge of Routledge & White, the management company that organized the tour.  Some time later, he left her in the lurch, taking all her money.

AB: About the 1951 tour, a recent magazine article about Bela claims that (Andi reads) “the supporting cast smacked of poverty row…the rest of the cast, too inexperienced to do otherwise, had not mastered their lines.”  What’s your reaction to his accusations?

RB: Absolute rubbish!  Absolute rubbish!  You write another article.  That is utter rubbish. Bela was the only “name” in a cast of mainly young unknowns, but the whole cast was quite experienced.  Arthur Hosking had been an established actor, especially in musicals, for many years.  David Dawson had done television and was quite a presentable leading man.  Sheila Wynn had done quite a bit of work, as had Joan Harding.  I first came across Sheila in 1947 when she and I worked together.  John Saunders had certainly done a lot of work.  Who else was there?  Oh, Eric Lindsay.  Well, he had done work of a sort.

AB: What was the pay like for appearing in Dracula?

RB: I think I received about £12 per week.  In those days £10 per week was considered a good salary in weekly repertoire, and one was always paid a little more for touring.  But there was no such payment as a touring allowance then and rehearsals were unpaid for several years to come.  At the time, actors were expected to provide every item of contemporary clothing, except for special items such as morning suits and uniforms and as a result, our wardrobes were somewhat depleted.  I daresay David had his consultant’s morning clothes supplied, similarly John Saunders’ attendant’s uniform and perhaps Eric was helped with his Renfield clothes.

AB: The article is very critical of the sets.

RB: That’s true, they were very cheaply made.  The backdrops and scenery were painted on cloth, very shabby.  The special effects, flying bats and magical appearances by Dracula, were very rudimentary to say the least, and very unreliable.  The bats were a particular problem.  They would be catapulted across the stage, and often they wouldn’t make it and would land in the middle of the stage, where they would have to stay.  In the climax of the short prologue to the play—which was a solo spot for Sheila, standing spotlit in front of black tabs, a large model bat on wires descended from the flies in a large cloud of smoke (fired from a smoke gun behind the tabs) and lowered over her head as she screamed.  Immediate black-out, followed by the black tabs opening to reveal the brightly lit consulting room.  I, as Jonathan Harker, then entered to await the imminent arrival of David Dawson.  Invariably, there was a considerable amount of smoke—a cloud, in fact—still hanging over the stalls, which we had learned to live with, but on one dreadful occasion the model bat was also present; its wires having jammed, suspended over David’s desk between his chair and the chair I was about to occupy.  I steeled myself for the ordeal to come and resolved to suppress my inner hysteria.  I remember wondering how and if David and I should refer to it in any way, but decided that we had best ignore it!  David entered, saw the bat, of course, and we both knew instinctively that eye contact between us must be avoided for the scene to continue.  When we took our seats the bat was dangling between us at eye level—it was quite a sizeable object!  So, we proceeded to ignore it and each other, and spoke our lines directly to the audience.  My firm resolve was shattered when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw David gently easing the bat to one side in order to see me, but with a great effort of will we both managed to keep talking.  There wasn’t a titter nor any response from the audience to indicate they were aware that anything was amiss, and in some strange way this helped us.  We battled on, but when, a short time later, the bat’s wires were sorted out and it suddenly shot up into the flies and out of sight, I’m afraid we were both quite helpless with laughter.  Disgraceful behaviour on our part, but I think you’ll agree we were sorely tried.

AB: It’s strange that all the people whom I have spoken who saw the play were particularly impressed with the special effects.

RB: Really?  That is strange.

AB: Did Bela ever offer advice as to how the rest of the cast should play their roles?

RB: Only once.  After our first night in Brighton, Bela met me in the wings one night after I had played my first scene with Lucy, who in the play has been visited by Count Dracula and somehow indoctrinated into vampirism.  This was all unbeknownst to me, her fiancé, who is visiting her, as she recovers from the vampire attack.  During the scene I express my worries and fears for her safety, and she gradually gets the urge to sink her teeth into my neck.  Horror stations! And a merciful black-out ended the scene.  Bela  said to me, “I think you could get more out of that scene.  Would you mind if I rehearsed it with you both?”  This was music to my ears as our director, who was memorable for his fancy socks, had left us immediately after our first performance with a single note, which is not unusual, even today, and there would have been inevitably much in the production which could have been improved.  Well, Sheila and I were re-rehearsed by Bela and whatever he did in the way of re-directing us must have helped because after we had played the scene as directed by him, he had watched us from the wings, he put his hands on my shoulders and kissed me on both cheeks in the continental manner.  “That was much better,” he said, and referring to the kisses, “and I am not a fairy!!”  That’s the only time he did something off his own back, and I was only too grateful.

AB: What did you think of Bela as an actor?

RB: Oh, I thought he was first class.  He had height and a stunning presence, no excess weight.  He had saturnine looks, and his greatest asset of all, a superb voice.  On stage this was produced so effortlessly.  He could speak in a seeming menacing whisper at, say, The Hippodrome, Golders Green, and be heard at the back of the gallery.  This is before the introduction of microphones on stage—a terrible practice!  That’s what surprised everyone, that he was such a wonderful stage actor.  You get many people, like Olivier or instance, who give out when they’re on, but don’t give out so much when they’re off, but he (Bela) wasn’t a nonentity off stage.

AB: How did you find him as a person?

RB: Both he and Lillian were charming and very accessible.  He was instantly friendly, but he was treated with all due deference because he was a movie star, and he was the reason that we were doing that play.  There was an atmosphere of great courtesy on both sides.  We called him “Bela”, we asked if he minded, Lillian said, “Sure, sure go ahead.”

AB: What was life like on the road with the Lugosis?

RB: This was in the days when the pecking order in any theatrical company, be it in the West End, number one, two or three tour and some repertory theatres, was always strictly adhered to.  In those days on tour when theatre dates were rarely longer than a week in any given place, companies travelled by train. The Lugosis certainly travelled with the company, though they might have a car from time to time.  I sometimes travelled with John Saunders by car—as far as I can remember he was the only car owner in the company.  Train calls on a Sunday morning meant assembling at the local station where the manager would assign company members to their respective carriages, which were reserved.  We never travelled with the general public.  There was a strict order of precedence observed, the leading members of the company travelling together, the supporting featured players—according to salary—then the rest of the actors—small parts and understudies—and the staff wardrobe mistress, carpenter, often a married pair—and the stage management in separate compartments—not with the actors.  That was the start of the journey, and discrete mingling took place as the train progressed.  All the Sunday papers were bought—sharing took place, of course—and, if the journey happened to be a long one, food and drink had to be bought by individuals on Saturday night as trains in those days, especially on Sunday, rarely had buffet or restaurant cars, and intermediate stops at stations en route couldn’t be relied upon to provide a buffet that would be open.  Now in Bela’s case, although he and his wife had their own compartment, they had no wish to travel alone and spent many hours entertaining us.  Except, that was, on certain occasions, when Lillian would say, “Now Bela has to have his injection.”  That was our cue to leave.  At that time Lillian had indicated that Bela had a health problem which necessitated medication, and it wasn’t until much later, after they had returned to America and poor Bela’s drug use became known, that we wondered if his “health problem” had been, in fact, his drug addiction.

AB: He committed himself to cure his addiction, apparently he had been suffering from leg pains for many years.

RB: I can remember that foot problem that he had.  I can see him now, but I had to be reminded of it.  Perhaps that is why he didn’t walk around?  You rarely saw him except during the play.  We never met him or Lillian around the town where we happened to be.  He just didn’t go out.  Wherever we happened to be, in England or Scotland, he knew nothing about the particular city or area, nor did he express any interest in local sights or places of interest.  A car picked him up from his hotel and a car collected him from the stage door.  Perhaps that’s why he didn’t walk around, he was just afraid of something happening.  We didn’t even go out with Lillian, but maybe he was jealous?  Maybe she wouldn’t have dreamt of saying, “Come on, boys, take me to the cathedral or take me to the pictures.”

AB: I don’t think he would have liked that.

RB: No, he wouldn’t.  But he always welcomed us into his dressing room, there was never any suggestion that we weren’t welcome.  From the beginning of the tour Bela’s No. 1 dressing room, wherever we played, was open house to us all, and coffee, beautiful American coffee, seemed to be always on tap, thanks to Lillian.

AB: Did the cast ever go back to his hotel after the show?

RB: No, there was no socialising after the show at all.  It was before and during, but not after.  Bela and Lillian always stayed in hotels during the tour, the rest of us stayed in “theatrical digs,” which in those days were still plentiful.   These digs differed from ordinary lodging houses in that, in most cases, all meals were provided and geared to an actor’ working day—late breakfast and late cooked suppers after the show.  Stage door keepers almost always had lists of available digs, and one could write to them in advance for recommendations.  But almost all actors had their own digs address books and, as a rule, if one didn’t have an address for a future date, one consulted friends or other members of the company.  The aim was to book in advance, seasonal actors often had the tour booked before the first train call—and never, if at all possible, to arrive at a new date with no address fixed.  Of course, there were bad digs, too, and actors made careful notes of addresses to avoid and warned other actors about them if at all possible.

AB: Do you recall any particular incidents during the tour?

RB: Bela was always charming to us backstage, and his interest in our somewhat second-rate production never flagged.  Needless to say, his own performance was always full throttle and the customers were enthralled.  Save, that is, at one theatre—the Golders Green Hippodrome—where to our amazement, we got the bird.  Any references to crucifixes, and there are many in the play, were greeted with cries of derision, and our crude special effects called forth hoots of laughter.  Perhaps, if Count Dracula had spent longer on the stage the unruly audience would have been more amenable.  It was the American version of the play, his part was extremely short.  His short scenes amounted to no more than 20 minutes of the total two hours running time, but his appearances were so impressive that no one complained of being short-changed.  In one theatre, the Lewisham Hippodrome where we were playing twice nightly, we were given a rough ride.  But this was entirely a management error.  On the first night of our one-week run our Van Helsing (Arthur Hosking), by far the largest part in the play, was indisposed.  His part was taken by a dear old character actor, Alfred Beale.  “Bealey”, as we called him, was actually our business manager.  I thought he was a saint.  He had been an actor, but I don’t think he had exercised his craft for many years.  The management error was in expecting this man to go on in a leading part without the benefit of a single rehearsal.  Mrs. Beale was very concerned about him, and came down to give him help and support.  Bela was most concerned for him.  I remember the scene on stage before the curtain went up on Van Helsing’s first appearance.  There was Bealey with his script in his hands, the poor man had to read the part, and at his side was Bela with benzedrine in tablet form and a large jug of water.  This had an immediate effect on Bealey and after the curtain rose he appeared not to have a care in the world as he read from his script.  This was much to the audience’s displeasure and, I’m sorry to say, our hard-to-suppress amusement.  I had to make an appearance in the scene, and my entrance coincided with Bealey dropping his script, which was not stapled but loose-leafed.  Mrs. Beale was in the fireplace, attempting to bring poor old Bealey back onto the script, and as he skipped about the stage picking up the scattered pages, still not panicked by the laughter and shouts from the auditorium, we had to end the scene as best we could, though we were not nearly as mirthful as we had been at the start.  Arthur Hosking rejoined us for the next performance.  I’ll tell you one funny thing that happened.  We thought that we were going to have a riot in Scotland because the playbill announced, “First Time in England.”  Even then the Scottish Nationalists were around, and I thought we were going to have a bomb-attack or something.  They never changed it.  I laughed like a drake when I saw that, “First Time in England.”

AB: Could the play ever have really succeeded in the West End?

RB: No, it would have flopped definitely.  It was such a tatty production.

AB: Could more money have turned it into a success?

RB: Not with that management.  They obviously didn’t have the right standards.  Out of their hands, who knows what might have happened?  But by then it was a bit of a freak show.  No, it wouldn’t have lasted more than two minutes.

AB: That was Bela’s whole reason for coming to Britain—he thought that he would be playing in the West End.

RB: Yes, maybe.  People have lied before.  That was a lying management if ever there was one.

AB: Was there any advance warning that the tour was in trouble?

RB: We got a fortnight’s notice.  They had to do that or they would have had to pay us two weeks wages, and they wouldn’t have done that.  Yes, we had due warning.

AB: So you were all paid?

RB: We were paid, the actors.  I don’t know about the others.

AB: It has always been claimed that Bela wasn’t paid, that he and Lillian were stranded in Britain, that’s why he appeared in the Mother Riley film.

RB: It could just be another story, an excuse for him appearing in such a poor film.  I imagine it was.  He never said anything, and Lillian never said to us, “Oh, they haven’t paid Bela.”  I think they just slotted Bela into the film.  They were just opportunistic.  As you said, it was already set up, it just suited everybody, Bela and Lillian.  John Saunders, sadly no longer with us, and I were friends on the tour.  He played the least rewarding part in the piece, the asylum attendant.  He and I were especially friendly with Lillian.  We were all interested in food and cooking—what actor isn’t?  As the tour was drawing to its end Lillian said, “You must visit us one evening and I’ll cook you an American corned-beef hash.”  At this point Bela had already booked to play in the film, and he and Lillian had rented a house near the studio.  She was as good as her word.  One day, John drove us out to their house, he was the only car owner in the company, and sure enough, in their kitchen we sat down to a delicious meal while Bela and Lillian regaled us with red-hot gossip from the studios.  He spoke with a heavy but perfectly understandable accent, with many Americanisms.  I particularly remember tulips pronounced “toolips”.

After Dracula Richard Butler stayed active in theatre, television and film for more 40 years.  In 1952 he made his first television appearance.  In 1959, as Lugosi’s phantom film Lock Up Your Daughters briefly materialized, Richard did a long stint in a play of the same name on the West End.  He appeared in various television series and mini-series, such as Coronation Street and Middlemarch, and played the vicar who conducts the fourth wedding in Four Weddings & A Funeral.  In October 1982 Richard was guest of honor at the Dracula Society of London’s celebration of the centennial of Bela’s birth and spoke publicly for the first time about working in Dracula. Richard Butler passed away in early 2004.

*          *          *

For two weeks in the summer of 1951, John Martin played Jonathan Harker while Richard Butler did military reserve duty.  John first appeared on the West End in 1940 in a supporting role in The Wandering Jew, and he staged manager a long run of Rebecca, starring the West End’s first Count Dracula, Raymond Huntley.  His rugged good looks gained him roles in such films as Tank Petrol.  But 1951 was a rough year for him, and he was glad to land the part of Jonathan Harker, if only for a few weeks.  Andi interviewed John on November 3, 1995:

Andi Brooks: How did you get the role of John Harker?

John Martin: I was haunting the agencies, looking for work, a very dispiriting experience, when I walked into Miriam Warner’s agency.  The agency no longer exists, but in the past nearly every actor was on her books, including Laurence Olivier.  She gave many young actors their start in theatre.  When I walked into the outer office I was confronted by her secretary.  She informed me that no work was available.  The door to Miriam’s office was open, and I could see her speaking on the telephone.  It turned out that a replacement for Richard Butler was needed rather quickly.  Miriam said that she had nobody suitable, but then she looked up and, seeing me, beckoned me into her office.  She placed her hand over the receiver.  “Have you got a suit?”  I nodded.  “Can you start right away?”  I nodded again.  She removed her hand from the receiver.  “I have a tall, handsome”—I was in those days—“talented actor, perfect for the role.  I’ll send him ‘round.”  That’s how I got the role, just luck.  I was in the right place at the right time.

AB: Were you familiar with the play or the film version?

JM: No, I had never seen a Bela Lugosi film.  I’ve never been a fan of horror or science fiction.  To be completely honest, I was not particularly impressed when I discovered that I would be playing with him.  Now, if it had been Ginger Rogers, that would have been something.  It was only many years later, when I incidentally mentioned that I had acted with Lugosi that I realized that people were interested.

AB: The tour has had a very rough ride at the hands of critics and historians.  Among the accusations levelled at it is that the cast was comprised of amateur actors.

JM: No, that’s not true.  The whole cast were professional actors.  They were all members of Equity.  If they had not been, they would not have been allowed to appear in the play.

AB: It has been alleged that Bela, then 68, was going deaf.  This resulted in his delivering his correct lines even though other members of the cast had missed their cues of fluffed their lines, much to the amusement of the audience.

JM: I wasn’t aware that he was suffering from hearing problems.  If he was, it certainly didn’t affect the play or his performance.  If there was audience laughter, it was nervous, not unintentional.  I’m not really sure if the play really did frighten the audiences.  It may have done when it was first performed, but by 1951 people were more sophisticated.  They were used to modern horrors in the cinema and on television.

AB: Bela had been playing the role of Dracula since 1927.  Was he still putting his soul into it or merely going through the motions?

JM: Oh, he certainly wasn’t going through the motions.  The role requires a larger than life performance, which he gave without hamming.  He was incredible to work with and react to.  I can see him quite clearly.  Wonderful.

AB: Do you have any particular memories of the play?

JM: It was just a few weeks in a career that spanned 50 years, so I don’t remember a great deal.  However, I do recall a few stories that might interest you.  During one performance Lugosi dried—a theatrical term for forgetting your lines.  Unruffled, he strode to the footlights, turned his back to the audience and grasping the corners of his cape, held his arms out wide.  He then whispered, “What the fuck do I say now?”

AB: Tim Burton’s Ed Wood came under a lot of criticism for portraying Bela’s using bad language?

JM: I can assure you that that story is 100% true.  Have you seen Ed Wood?

AB: Yes, it’s a great film.  At first, I thought that Martin Landau’s portrayal was a crude caricature, but by the end of the film I was almost convinced that he was Bela.

JM:  I thought that it was a wonderful film.  The way in which Martin Landau portrayed Lugosi was exactly how I remember him during the brief time that I knew him.  I recall one other event during my time with the tour.  At the climax of the play, an enormous stake is driven into Dracula.  It wasn’t really Lugosi in the coffin, we used a dummy.  Lugosi would be resting in his dressing room until he was needed to cry out in pain from the wings.  On this particular night I asked if I could drive in the stake.  It’s a very tense and dramatic scene.  I raised the hammer and brought it down.  There was no reaction from Lugosi.  I struck the stake a second time.  Again, a deathly silence.  I looked across to the wings, Lugosi was nowhere to be seen.  Uncertain what to do, I withdrew the stake and prepared to hit it again when I heard the sound of footsteps rushing down the long flight of stairs that led down from the dressing rooms.  A breathless Lugosi appeared in the wings and apologetically mouthed, “Sorry”.  I then drove home the stake.

AB: Wasn’t the play originally destined for a run in the West End?

JM: Yes, even in the latter stages of the tour there was still talk of taking it to the West End.

AB: What do you recall of Bela himself?  Many of his co-stars have said they found him aloof.

JM: He was very friendly with everyone, there were no “Big Star” theatricals.  He was imposing, larger than life, but wonderful to work with and warm and friendly.  Although he was accompanied by a woman who I assume was his wife – she was very quiet, always in the background; she struck me as having no personality of her own—he seemed to be very lonely.

AB: How would you assess him as an actor?

JM: Undoubtedly, he was a very fine actor.  If only he had been given the opportunity to show it.  It’s a great shame.

Soon after leaving the Dracula company, John Martin went to Australia and did a season in Message for Margaret.  Back in England, he appeared in musical revues and did stints as a circus ringmaster and a tour guide.  In the late 1950s, he appeared on the West End in The Grass Is Greener as understudy to Hugh Williams, who played Inspector Holt opposite Lugosi’s mad doctor in 1939’s film Dark Eyes of London.  John retired in 1997, shortly after his interview with Andi. 

*          *          *

Eric Lindsay, who played Renfield in the 1951 tour, was one of the easiest to locate and one of the most difficult to meet.  Eric is a stage magician with a hectic schedule of engagements, but Andi was finally able to meet him on August 3, 1997 in his home in south London.  Born within the sound of Big Ben’s bells, Eric shed his Cockney accent through elocution lessons, and began acting at age 15.  He slowly gravitated to offbeat roles, as in Tobacco Road and Treasure Island.  He was rather handsome, but letting his naturally wavy hair go a little wild and his large eyes bulge made him the perfect maniac.

Andi Brooks: How did you get the role of Renfield?

Eric Lindsay: Sometime before Dracula, George Routledge approached me and asked to represent me.  Later, he called me and I auditioned for it.  Fortunately, I was fairly lucky because it was going through his management production company

AB: Do you recall where the audition was held?

EL: The auditions were held in the office of John Mather, which was in Knightsbridge.

AB: How long after the audition did you begin rehearsals?

EL: Two or three weeks.

AB: Where did they take place?

EL: We rehearsed in a place which is a block of flats on Pont Street, just off Kensington and Chelsea.  It was a big block of flats with a restaurant to the side.  We rehearsed in a large restaurant which they took over.  I think we were there for about two or three weeks.

AB: Was that a normal rehearsal period?

EL: Yes.

AB: Do you recall your first meeting with Bela?

EL: I had only seen Bela Lugosi in films so I was, like, scared to meet him.  I was really petrified.  I had to have two stiff drinks before I went in to meet him. I was frightened because he frightened me, but he was absolutely charming, he was lovely.  Before we started rehearsals someone threw a party at a flat off Tottenham Court Road, and there I met Bela. Rehearsals started on the Monday after his arrival and the party was on the Sunday night before.  On the night before the party, on Saturday, I heard Bela interviewed on a programme called In Town Tonight on the radio.  They interviewed him and he did this wonderful thing.  They asked him if it took him long to get ready to prepare for the role of Dracula.  He said that he would get to the theatre about at least an hour before and he would just concentrate on Dracula, never speaking to anyone.  He would just stand in the wings and never talk.  Opening night, I went on before him as Renfield, the mad man.  I was standing there waiting for my cue, and all he did was talk.  All he was doing was talking to me while I went: “Sush! Sush! I can’t hear my cue!”  He was talking away, jabbering, and I thought: “What’s all this fallacy about you not talking to anyone?”  It was part of his mystique.

AB: Was it an exciting prospect to be working with Bela?

EL: It was wonderful, I was thrilled out of my mind.  But apart from that the role was so good.  After Dracula, that’s the next best role.  It’s a gift.  It was a wonderful part. Before going one, I would twirl his arms to get in character, and let out a yell before every entrance. All my entrances were through the window.

AB: Were you already familiar with Bram Stoker’s novel or Bela’s film?

EL: I’d seen the film; I hadn’t read the book.  All I did read was the play.

AB: Did you have any particular inspiration for your portrayal of Renfield?

EL: He was crazy—he was crazy—and I perfectly capable of being crazy.  The only thing I didn’t like was that he ate flies and spiders.  I wasn’t really keen about that.  People would send them to me, and a dead mouse.  It frightened the life out of me. After every show I treated myself to a long, relaxed hot bath.  One night, my dressing gown slipped off its hook and made a “whoosh” sound—I thought it was a bat.  It frightened me half to death. 

AB: Had you previously worked with any other members of the cast?

EL: No, but Sheila I knew very well before hand.  We were friends, but I haven’t seen her in donkey’s years.  Joan Winmill was a great girl, a fun girl, but then she got religion and went with Billy Graham.  Arthur Hosking and David Dawson were not sociable, and I never got to know them that well.  I later worked with Ralph Wilson on Hay Fever.

AB: How much were you paid for the tour?

EL: I got the princely sum of about…I think it was £20 per week, which was great money in those days.

AB: It has been claimed that Bela was unhappy with the production and delayed the premiere while last-minute changes were made.

EL: We never did that, there was no delay.  We opened at the Theatre Royal on the Monday.  We did the dress rehearsal and opened on the Monday.

AB: I understand that Megs Jenkins attended the dress rehearsal?

EL: George Routledge was married to Megs Jenkins, so she was there at the dress rehearsal.  The rehearsals were wonderful, but the dress rehearsal was a wee-bit fraught.  Megs Jenkins was very helpful because there were big trauma going on about the negligee that Sheila had to wear.  She helped to alter it.  It was lovely.  But I mean, the dress rehearsal was a dress rehearsal, when we did the show, it was brilliant.

AB: Did she attend the premiere?

EL: Yes, she was there from dress rehearsal to all the way through the show—the first three days of performance.

AB: Did she offer any professional advice to the cast?

EL: She didn’t need to offer me any advice, I took off straight away. I would get a round every time I came on, and at the exit.  If I didn’t get a round I would get very annoyed.

AB: What was the atmosphere like among the cast on that first night?

EL: Well, on a first night, it’s electric.  Everybody’s a bit…like that (Eric holds up a shaking hand).

AB: The reviews were encouraging?

EL: Everywhere, they were very good everywhere.

AB: You were often singled out for praise.

EL: Because it was a wonderful part and I did it very well.

AB: A recent magazine article tells a different story.  (Andi reads) “Sets, costumes and the supporting cast smacked of “poverty row”.  The disappointment of finding himself surrounded by such amateurish elements crushed Bela’s hopes and reduced him to desperation…The rest of the cast, too inexperienced to do otherwise, had not mastered their lines.”

EL: Whoever wrote that doesn’t know what the production was like.  It was excellent, it really was.  The set was unbelievable—condensed, only one set for all: bedroom and sitting room in one set.  It was wonderful, it was the most wonderful set and the cast was good.  Bela was quite happy.  He was just concerned about going into London, you know what I mean?

AB: The article also states “{The play} was a disaster…the long provincial tour never materialized.”

EL: We toured for 24 weeks, would you say that was a flop?

AB: It has been said the management company had difficulty raising finance for the tour.

EL: Well, we did meet strange people, like farmers, who were supposed to be backers of the show.

AB: Variety announced that 10 out of a maximum of 26 weeks had already been booked upon Bela’s arrival in England.  Were dates being added as the tour progressed?

EL: Oh no.

AB: It certainly seemed to zigzag wildly across the country.

EL: Oh god, we went from, like, Middlesbrough to Belfast which took us all day and night on the Sunday.  We arrived in Belfast on Monday morning.  We went from Stranrær to Belfast, so we had to go all the way up to Scotland.

AB: Travelling must have been such an ordeal in those days, how did you find the energy to go on and perform?

EL: We were at that age when we could do anything.  But they did do some strange things.  We played all the best theatres, all the number one dates, but if they had a gap in between we would do it twice nightly in variety theatres, which I couldn’t understand.  We would go down like a bomb—I mean, it didn’t bomb, it would go wonderful when we did it in variety.  They screamed their heads off, it was wonderful.

AB: What do you recall of your director?

EL: I remember Richard Eastham, he was brilliant.  I thought he was wonderful.

AB: He didn’t stay with the tour?

EL: He went off on other things, but he would pop in now and then.

AB: Did Bela need much direction?

EL: No, he knew the part so well, but Bela liked to change things.  He was forever changing things.  He’d call a rehearsal and change things.  We put in a prologue which was very effective.  There was a voice over: “The hour is midnight,” you’d hear these chimes, “which is the time for the undead to come out.”  Just me lying by this coffin, leaning on it, guarding it.  At the stroke of midnight I would laugh hysterically and run off.  Slowly the coffin lid would open.  He had the most beautiful hands you’ve ever seen.  His hands were exquisite.  The coffin lid would lift up slowly and his hands would come out.  You just saw this white hand and of course everyone would scream at the sight of the hand.  He would push the lid up and then get out and open his cloak and look as if he was about to fly off.  All the smoke would appear and then we would go into the play.  So while we were on tour he decided that this was going in.  I don’t think we had a lot of rehearsals, it was thrown together.  On the first night we were there early.  They called the five, and he got into the coffin.  I leaned on the coffin and we did the thing.  When we came off he said to me, gasping for air: “Eric, Eric,” he said, “for God’s sake, keep the lid of the coffin open, have your thumb in there.  I thought I was going to suffocate.” That prologue with Bela emerging from his coffin was used through the rest of the whole show.  He always got a scream or two and a round of applause.   He had a great sense of humour. 

AB: What were your impressions of Bela as an actor?

EL: He was excellent.  He knew what he was doing.  It’s the most wonderful role.  It’s a very short role, a tiny role, but they talk about him all through the play.  All they do is talk about Dracula.  So, when he’s not on they’re all mentioning him.  He did a wonderful thing.  I would be in the wings because I was on and off all the time.  They would announce Count Dracula and the maid would come on and open both doors.  He would stand in the wings and count to ten: “1…2…3…4…” So, by the time he came on the whole house was applauding like crazy.  Wonderful entrance.  Wonderful timing.  Terrific!

AB: Did he ever offer advice to the cast?

EL: Oh, he was offering me advice all the time.  He would rehearse with me all the time.  We were forever rehearsing.  He loved it. Bela often approached cast members about their scenes, and he’d rehearse them.  As late as Leicester, Bela asked me about changes he wanted to make.

AB: Do you have any anecdotes about working with him.

EL: Bela was a lot like Martin Landau in Ed Wood, but I don’t remember any foul language. He had an eye for the girls, always had an eye for the girls.  We had a girl who was our effects manager, Joan Harding.  She would deal with the smoke.  In those days it was an electrical machine, an old-fashioned sort of thing that produced the smoke.  It was like a gun.  She came in one day, I think between shows, while I was talking to him.  She said: “Oh, Bela, please, there are some people at the stage door who would like their programmes signed.”  Of course, he signed them all and then took her hand and said:  “What are you going for?”  She knew he had that look in his eyes.  She knew he was after her.  She said: “I can’t stop, my gun is getting hot.”  He said: “So is mine!”  I’ll always remember that, “So is mine!”

AB: What was Lillian like?

EL: Lillian was lovely.  She took great care of Bela, she did.  He had this very bad sciatica, and he would be in pain.  He would say to me that he took the drink to take the pain away.  She gave him painkillers.  She told me she was a trained nurse.  Lillian talked a lot about Bela, Jr.  She was dissatisfied with the tour—“conned into coming” is what she would say.  She saw the posters.  “Is that all?”  After Dracula, I met Bela and Lillian once more before they went home.  In Piccadilly, at Fortmun & Mason.  I gave them a box of matchbooks with their names on them.  I called Lillian when I was in Los Angeles years later, about 1975.  Lillian claimed she had no memory at all of 1951.  I got her phone number from Bela, Jr., when I called his law office.  He was a very friendly, charming man.

AB: Was there any indication that Bela, Sr. had a drug problem?

EL: All I can tell you is that the man was with it the whole time.  You can’t say he was out of his brain, no way was he out of his mind.  I didn’t even know he was on drugs.  If he was, I never knew it.  He told me Lillian gave him injections for his sciatica, which is true.  He would strangle me in the play and then throw me on the floor.  Now, he told me he had sciatica so he had injections for it which Lillian gave him.  One night he was strangling me and he had an attack.  He really strangled me.  I tried to pull his hand away and I was really screaming, which I used to do any way.  When I came off I said, “Don’t do it again!”  He said: “It’s my sciatica, it was playing me up.”  But he was great, great.  He was a lovely man.  He told me once that “you have the eyes of a magician,” and that’s just what I later became.

AB: What did you do to fill in time between performances?

EL: What do you do when you’re on tour…you just stroll around the shops.  I was very friendly with Sheila and Joan Winmill, we would stay together.  Richard was friendly with John Saunders so I never socialised with them.  There was not a great deal of socializing, though maybe some of the cast would meet for coffee.  John Saunders was my understudy.  I swore that even if I was dead I would go on.  No way was he going to get a chance to do it.  It got to such a stage that he was petrified to do it anyway.  I was ill at one time.  I had terrible flu.  He would bring me medicine and say: “You’ll be alright.  You can go on?”

AB: What was life on the road with the tour like?

EL: It was the kind of company that if we did a matinee Lillian would invite all the cast in. She made tea and avocado sandwiches and, of course, it was delicious.  It was the first time I ever had avocado.  It shows you that it was a fairly friendly company for us all to go in and have tea with them.  We were in the Copper Kettle in Norwich, I’ll always remember, it was the only time I shared digs with him.  His room was next to mine, and I could never understand it, he was up all night.

AB: What was he doing?

EL: I don’t know.  I could hear them talking, but I don’t know what he was doing.  When Bela came down for breakfast, he moaned “I’m ill.  My head!  My head!”  He had me searching around the whole of Norwich for “Fernut Berunka,” because he would drink at night.  He did drink.  He woke me up one day and said: “My head!  I can’t move.  Go out and buy me some Fernut Berunka,” which I’d never heard of.  I only know it because of Bela.  It’s good for a hangover.  It’s a sort of alcohol, a drink.  It’s supposed to be good for curing a hangover, but it tastes vile—he gave me some.

AB: Bela stayed in?

EL: Yes.  He was getting over his hangover.  Bela drank, so what?  Lots of people drink.  He’s entitled to drink after he finished a show.  It was just one of those things.  I can’t remember what he drank.

AB: What about during performances?

EL: No, he didn’t drink during the show.  He was a professional.  I mean, he’d played Hamlet in Hungary, he’d done the roles.  He was a stage actor; he wasn’t a film star.  He did Dracula on stage in America and got type cast.  He was amazing.  He had very pallid skin, but maybe that was through what he was on, I don’t know.  He had the most sensational make-up.  It consisted of a black liner and lipstick.  All he did was put black around his eyes, do his eyebrows and just put those lips on, blood-red lips, and that was it.  I’m not sure if he powdered his hands.  I wore a thing from Max Factor on whatever would show, because I has these rags on from the lunatic asylum.  It was kind of body make-up which had a tinge of green so I looked a bit sick.  I remember the Theatre Royal Nottingham, because it was wonderful.  The Theatre Royal backed onto the Empire variety theatre.  There was an alley where the stage door was.  I always remember that Renee Houston, who was a famous comedienne, was hanging out of the window, pissed out of her mind, talking to us and I was in this make-up.

AB: Did Bela and Lillian usually stay in digs with the rest of the cast?

EL: No, they usually stayed in a hotel.   This time the hotels must have been full.  We stayed in this wonderful guest house which was also a restaurant called the Cooper Kettle. You could get digs for £5 a week.

AB: Did you have to pay for that yourself?

EL: Oh, yes.

AB: And your food?

EL: Oh, yes.

AB: What do you remember about the special effects?

EL: The special effects were very good.  The death scene was bad because they didn’t tilt the coffin enough.  It should have been like that, and also they didn’t use it right.

AB: Did the cast make any public appearances to promote the tour?

EL: No, nothing was arranged.  We never did anything, no publicity at all. George Harrison Marks did take some production photographs, but he has lost the negatives.

AB: Do you recall any particular events during the tour?

EL: My manager would come along and see Bela, it was hysterical.  We played the Devonshire Park Theatre, Eastbourne.  He waited inside by the stage door.  He didn’t bother coming to my dressing room.  Bela walked past, I was following him, and my manager went up against the wall, terrified.  He must have seen it about 30 times.  Once Bela and I were talking so intently, I missed my cue.  David Dawson had to fetch me.

AB: The tour was supposed to culminate in a run in the West End?

EL: We all thought it was going into town.  We were supposed to go to the Comedy Theatre, but at the last minute they booked Mischa Auer in.  That was a disaster.

AB: Couldn’t it have been rescheduled?

EL: I don’t think so.  He was signed up to do the film.  He did the film straight after we finished.  It was impossible.

AB: Were any dates left unfulfilled when the tour ended?

EL: We played all the dates that were booked.  I do think we had a week off.

AB: Would you have been paid for any weeks out?

EL: No. I think there was some trauma about Bela being paid his full salary.  I think they paid money up front.  No one works for you without being paid.

Eric Lindsay is the last of the Dracula cast to work regularly on stage.  A few years after  Dracula he opened his own theatre club, Casino de Paris.  Eric directed and choreographed all the shows, which often featured magicians. The showgirls thought Eric did illusions as well as the professionals he hired, and urged him, literally, to get into the act.  Bela’s observation of long before, “you have the eyes of a magician” came back to him, and he took up magic.  As Eric Zee, he scored a big success at the London Palladium, and brought his act to America, playing Las Vegas and Reno.  Eric spent the year 2000 millennium celebration playing a magician-emperor in a holiday production of Aladdin.  Aladdin played at the Theatre Royal in Brighton—Eric’s first return to the site of Dracula’s premiere 49 years before.  He remains an unshaken believer in the 1951 Dracula, and maintains that had the production only gotten to the West End, Bela Lugosi would have had London at his feet.

*          *          *

With Andi’s interviews of the three actors, and with the other information we had gathered, we knew that the published information on Lugosi’s 1951 tour was simply incorrect.  But as yet we had only part of the full story, and we agreed that we had to find the actresses from the 1951 Dracula to record their recollections.  None of the actors interviewed knew anything of their whereabouts.  None of the women apparently still worked in theatre.  A few references could be found to them in 1950s British theatre yearbooks and the like, but after about 1955, nothing.

We particularly wanted to find Sheila Wynn who played Lucy Seward.  With the possible exception of Dorothy Peterson (in the 1927 Broadway production), Sheila had played opposite Lugosi’s Dracula more than any other actress.  But Sheila’s trail was cold—we could find no trace of any acting credits after 1951.  Our letters of inquiry printed in The Stage, the trade journal of British theatre, drew no response.

A 1951 drama review mentioned that Sheila came from the Hampstead borough of London.  The Hampstead telephone directory listed 8 “Wynns,” and Frank wrote them all, asking if any knew of an actress named Sheila Wynn, born around 1930.  Five of the eight answered.  None had ever heard of her, but one suggested that we write the local newspaper, The Ham & High (short for Hampstead & Highgate).  The write-up in the paper brought one response.  Mary Hardie was Sheila’s cousin.  She had met Sheila only a few times, and had last seen her in 1951, at a performance of Dracula at the Golders Green Hippodrome (only a few underground stops from Hampstead).  Sheila’s real name, Mary told us, was Sheila Smith.  Mary had had no contact with her since 1951.

Not the response we had hoped for, but Mary Hardie was our only hope.  An earnest telephone call from Frank prompted Mary to rummage through her late mother’s papers.  Frank’s pleas were more heartfelt than he appreciated—Mary later confessed that she surmised he must be looking for a lost mother.  In an old trunk, Mary found a faded wedding invitation.  On October 11, 1952, almost a year to the day after Dracula closed in Portsmouth, Sheila had married Anthony Eyre of Cambridge.  Mary vaguely remembered her mother once mentioning that Sheila lived in some kind of manor house. 

Guides of historical homes in Britain told us that the Eyres of Cambridge had lived in Sawston Hall for generations.  Long before the late 1990s, the mansion and its grounds had been sold and converted to a college.  No one at the college could offer any help as to what became of the former owners.  Three “Eyres” were listed in the Cambridge directory.  Letters went to all of them; none replied.

Months later, the telephone rang in Frank’s office in Aberdeen, Scotland.  “This is Sheila Eyre.  I understand you have been trying to reach me.”

To Be Continued

Part 2