SOURCE: US Magazine July 24, 1979   

THE NEW DRACULAS BECOME THE KINKIEST SEX SYMBOLS EVER
by Jean Cox Penn and Jill Barber

Suggestively swirling a red-lined black velvet cape around his 
shoulders, a tall, darkly handsome man enters the bedroom of the 
virginal, young blonde he has chosen for his bride. Sweeping her 
into his arms, he carries her to the bed, tears open his shirt, stares 
longingly into her eyes and delivers a passionate but lethal bite on 
her neck.

"My God, he's gorgeous," comes the voice of a woman in the audience. 
With that remark, Dracula, the bloodsucking Count from Transylvania was 
reborn, this time not just as a vampire, but as a sex symbol who's seducing 
the country. This particular scene was played out during last season's 
Broadway opening of "Dracula", starring Frank Langella, a charismatic 
actor who'll start audiences gasping on a nationwide scale when the 
movie Dracula opens across the US on July 13 (a Friday of course). 
The way has already been profitably paved for Langella by the success 
of the film Love at First Bite, with George Hamilton as a comically amorous 
Dracula more interested in counting conquests than coffins. 

Created by Bram Stoker, (a London business manager turned writer) in 
his 1897 novel, Dracula has never been out of print. Variations on the 
character have appeared in 29 novels, 118 short stories, myriad newspaper 
and magazine accounts, plus five television series reaching 430 million 
viewers in 17 countries. There have been 200 feature films worldwide, 
the most famous being the 1931 version, starring Bela Lugosi, and the 
British Dracula series, starring Christopher Lee, which began in 1958. 

But Dracula has never been like this. As played by Langella, he is a 
fiercely sexual being, determined not to spend eternity alone. "To my 
Dracula," says the actor, "the bite on the neck is an orgasm." Today 
Langella might well be stunned at what his erotic nibble has wrought. 
We are on the brink of a romantic Dracula explosion. No less than a 
dozen vampire epics have been completed or are in the works. John 
Travolta owns the film rights to Interview with a Vampire; director Ken 
Russell plans to film his own kinky version of the Dracula legend; German 
filmmaker Werner herzog is ready with his Nosferatu: The Vampire.

On TV, Louis Jourdan has already starred in his "Count Dracula" for 
PBS, but Jason (The Exorcist) Miller will vamp through an ABC-TV 
movie this fall, while CBS has a sitcom lined up called "The Reluctant 
Vampire." A Broadway musical-comedy, "Fangs," has been announced, 
plus "Dracula Rocks," a disco version. Numerous stage productions 
have begun or are about to tour the country with Raul Julia, Farley 
Granger, George Chakiris, Jose Greco and Jeremy Brett following 
in Langella's footsteps. This month, we'll also have a porn version of the 
story, aptly titled Dracula Sucks, featuring hardcore king Jamie Gillis 
taking a literal slant on his various proceedings.

But of all the new romantic Draculas, the one most likely to give Langella 
a run for the title is George Hamilton.
[I have deleted three columns of extraneous text here, since this is Frank's 
web site, not Mr. Hamilton's -- Sol8air]
Hamilton is so grateful for what Dracula's done for his flagging career that 
he's hustling around this country and Europe publicizing it. At the Cannes Film 
Festival, for example, he marched out on the Carlton Beach in full Dracula regalia. 
In Hollywood, he laid a wreath and a goblet of blood on the late Bela Lugosi's 
grave. In New York, he arrived at the Plaza Hotel in a horse-drawn hearse.  
On talk shows, he drinks tomato juice. At shopping malls, he bites girls on the 
neck. "The only thing left," says Hamilton grimly, "is for me to go door-to-door 
with the Avon lady handing out autographed pictures."

The very notion of such publicity maneuvers would probably drive Frank 
Langella bats. An intensely private man, Langella guards his personal life 
as diligently as Dracula protects his coffin. But the 6-foot, 4-inch, 39 year 
old actor recently did explain why he thinks Dracula is touching such a 
responsive chord.

"It's a role that's very classical in nature," explains Langella, who has played 
roles ranging from Cyrano to Sherlock Holmes in repertory theatres across the 
US. "Only in the works of Shakespeare have I found a character of such 
dimension, stature and power. Dracula just has one serious problem: 
He likes to drink blood." Langella laughs. "I've played characters with far 
worse problems than that."

Like the play, Langella sees the new movie Dracula as "a love story. 
He is very much in love with Lucy. I insisted on no fangs, no red eyes, no 
hollow cheeks. Dracula is not a ghoul, not a ghost. I see him more as a Byronic 
hero." Langella admits there is more gore in the movie than the play, as Dracula 
is chased over land and sea by Laurence Olivier in the role of Professor Van 
Helsing, the vampire killer.  The added violence accounts for the film's "R" rating. 
Still, Langella insists that the Count's erotic passion for Lucy is never lost sight of. 

Langella agrees with Hamilton that Dracula is "a dominant, aggressive 
force. He must have Miss Lucy or he dies. He wants what he wants and 
he doesn't analyze it. Dracula as a character is very erotic. He becomes 
very attractive to women for that reason. A woman can be totally passive 
with Dracula: 'he made me drink, I couldn't help it.' I think it's possible for 
both men and women to imagine being taken in that way. Dracula seems 
to represent a kind of doorway to sexual abandonment not possible with 
a mere mortal. Besides, he's offering immortality." Langella considers 
a moment. "Actually, I can't think of a woman who wouldn't like to be taken 
if it's with love. If you take a woman by force and at the same time gently, 
you can't fail."

Langella doesn't say if that's how he won Ruth Weil, his wife of almost 
two years and a former editorial director of House Beautiful. "My friends 
were all very relieved when I got married," says Langella, who allegedly 
cut quite a romantic swath on the theater circuit. "But I'm relieved I didn't 
get married any earlier. I led a gypsy life and would surely have been divorced."

Langella, despite his princely manner, elegant dress and cultured 
speech, grew up (the son of the president of a barrel and drum company) 
in Bayonne, NJ. He lost his accent by listening to John Gielgud records over 
and over again as a teenager. "I'm bred for the theatre," says Langella, 
who graduated from Syracuse University's drama department in 1959. 
Though he co-starred in four films in the early 70's (The Twelve Chairs, 
Diary ofa Mad Housewife, The Wrath of God, The Deadly Trap) and Dracula 
is sure to bring new, megabuck offers, Langella insists his first love is the theatre. 

Now, Langella is doing song and dance routines for his next film, 
Those Lips, Those Eyes. "The last thing I want is to be forever 
associated with Dracula. Mr. Lugosi went on and played it the rest 
of his life. He died in 1956 at 73, and his last words were: 'I blame it all on 
Dracula.' It won't be that way with me."

Still, it's unlikely that Dracula will stop haunting Langella or Hamilton. 
Whether the appeal is sex, immortality or a response to women's 
liberation, the new Draculas have set off a demand in audiences 
that shows no signs of diminishing. As one critic cryptically put it: 
"It looks as though the Count, though officially dead, is unlikely ever 
to lie down."

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