The Many Faces Of Dracula On Television

Though the movies may claim the most famous screen adaptations of Bram Stoker's immortal character Dracula, the vampire has also enjoyed a long and diverse career on television. Since the late 1960s, small screen versions of Stoker's novel have brought Gothic menace to TV screens in the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, Czechoslovakia, and India, while his monstrous antagonist has turned up as a guest villain in series ranging from "Doctor Who" and "Supernatural" to "Chilling Adventures of Sabrina" and even Adult Swim's "Decker." These are just a handful of TV takes on Dracula, which holds the Guinness World Record as the non-human character with the most screen adaptations (272).

Following is an all-inclusive, globe-spanning look at some of the best TV adaptations or appearances of Dracula, as well as a few that might be relatively new to vampire devotees. Grab your crosses and your stakes: it's time to stare deeply into the many faces of Dracula on television.

One of several TV-movie adaptations of Gothic horror fiction produced and directed by "Dark Shadows" creator Dan Curtis in the 1970s, "Dracula" — also known as "Bram Stoker's Dracula" — hews as closely to the source novel as the later Francis Ford Coppola film of the same name. Which is to say: It deviates wildly from the book, adding a romantic subplot and turning Dracula into a tragic romantic, neither of which work particularly well, even in the hands of a skillful scriptwriter like fantasy fiction legend Richard Matheson. However, it does have the benefit of Oscar winner Jack Palance as its Count.

Though saddled with a drippy reincarnation subplot that explains his obsession with Fiona Lewis' Lucy, Palance's Dracula has an imposing presence and considerable physicality, which he shows off in the sequence where he finds Lucy dead and destroys her tomb, and later, in the showdown with Nigel Davenport's Van Helsing and Simon Ward's Arthur Holmwood. Palance may inspire the occasional giggle by hissing or exhaling through all of his lines, but there's no denying that from the standpoint of sheer physical power, he's an imposing Dracula on par with Christopher Lee or Claes Bang.

The BBC's 1977 production of "Count Dracula" emphasized the concept of the vampire as a Gothic romantic figure: the two-and-a-half-hour, shot-on-video teleplay bills itself in those terms — and chooses an actor synonymous with Old World romance to play the Count. French actor Louis Jourdan, who was a suave presence in Hollywood films from the 1940s and '50s like Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" and "Gigi," played Dracula as more lover than monster, displaying courtly manners and bedroom eyes to Susan Penhaglion's Lucy and Judi Bowker's Mina, both of whom fall (understandably) under his sway.

Jourdan also brings an appealing touch of melancholy to his Dracula, which balances the smoldering side of his performance. The hint of sadness in Jourdan's face and his languid movements seem to suggest a weariness with the business of being a vampire — the blood-drinking, the stalking, the coffins. It's not all seduction and midnight rendezvous, Jourdan seems to telegraph to the audience. That compelling combination, along with Philip Saville's atmospheric direction, makes the BBC "Count Dracula" one of the most effective TV adaptations.

In Netflix's animated adaptation of the classic Konami video game series "Castlevania,"  monster hunters team with the half-human son of Dracula to fight his father's army of demons as they attempt to overtake the Eastern European country of Wallachia. The series' Dracula is a formidable figure, possessed of both supernatural power and scientific knowledge, but he's also a surprisingly sympathetic character. His war on humanity is motivated not by bloodlust or power, but loss: his wife was burned at the stake for witchcraft by superstitious villagers.

Graham McTavish provides Dracula with a sonorous voice and complex emotions in "Castlevania," which represents just one of many voice-over roles the Scottish actor essays. Among them are characters on "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles," "DuckTales," "Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes," and video games like "Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution" and "Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2." However, he's also well known for his live-action projects, which include the "Hobbit" trilogy, "Outlander," "Lucifer," and "House of the Dragon."

German actor Rudolf Martin's credits include features like "Ford v. Ferrari" and "Swordfish" and numerous television appearances, including episodes of and recurring roles on "24," "NCIS," "Mad Men," and "Dexter." He also played two very different versions of Dracula for two separate television projects in 2000: Martin was the fictional Count Dracula in Season 5 of "Buffy the Vampire Slayer," and also played his real-life inspiration, the 15th century ruler of Wallachia and allegedly brutal military leader in "Dark Prince: The True Story of Dracula."

Martin discussed his two takes on Dracula in an email conversation with Looper. In regard to "Dark Prince," Martin wrote that he conducted intensive research into Vlad's life. "I wanted to get as much of an understanding of his life and his time as possible — what might have been driving him, as well as a sense of what life was like." As Martin noted, "There are no vampires in ['Dark Prince']" — unlike "Buffy," which he filmed just a few months later. "I decided to ham it up and just be a vampire," Martin recalled. "I mostly leaned on the vampire played by Klaus Kinski in the great film 'Nosferatu the Vampyre' from 1979."

A burly, bearded Count dominates "Hrabe Drakula," a 1971 adaptation of Stoker's novel made for Czechoslovakian television. Actor Ilja Racek is a subdued Dracula here, who resides in an exceptionally atmospheric (and from the looks of it, apparently real) ruined castle attended by three ghostly brides. But Racek — a prolific stage actor in his native Czechoslovakia until his death in 2018 — also brings a slow-boiling menace to the role, which echoes the adaptation's understated Gothic vibe.

Clocking at a brief 76 minutes, "Hrabe Drakula" is notable for several reasons beyond Racek's robust Dracula. It's the first adaptation of "Dracula" helmed by a woman (co-scripter Anna Prochazkova), and the first to feature several elements from the Stoker novel that went unseen from "Dracula" films prior to its release. These include the scene in which Dracula descends face-down on the walls of his castle, and a grisly moment in which the Count wards off his brides, who appear as little more than ghosts here, with the offering of a baby. It also features a somewhat novel means of dispatching the vampire, who dies here when a thrown dagger pierces his heart.

Norman Welsh gave a highly melodramatic performance as Dracula in a 1973 small-screen adaptation for the Canadian anthology series "Purple Playhouse." Outfitted with sweeping white hair and colossal fangs, Welsh's English-accented Dracula cuts a stately figure, which when combined with the actor's sepulchral voice, more than sells the notion of the vampire's overwhelming, magnetic presence. There's not a great deal of subtlety to Welsh's performance, but there's also little room for nuance, given the production's slimmed-down storyline, which removes a number of supporting characters, and limited budget.

Welsh, a noted stage actor in his native Canada (and apparently also a frequent guest performer as Santa Claus on "MisteRogers"), is perhaps less well-known to mainstream audiences than two of his castmates, both from America. Emmy nominee Blair Brown ("Orange Is the New Black") played the vampirized Mina Murray, and character actor Nehemiah Persoff ("Yentl"), who died in 2022 at the age of 102, was Van Helsing.

Actor Geordie Johnson played a youthful, blonde-haired Count in disguise in the Canadian TV drama "Dracula: The Series," which aired in syndication in 1990 and 1991. Johnson's Alexander Lucard, or A. Lucard (read that backwards), was a wealthy industrialist — a plot element shared with Hammer's "Satanic Rites of Dracula" from 1973 — whose machinations were constantly foiled by a trio of kids that included Mia Kershner, who later played a vampire queen in "30 Days of Night: Dark Days," and a descendant of Professor Van Helsing. Since "Dracula: The Series" was slanted towards young viewers, their clashes were largely bloodless and even occasionally comic, with Dracula reacting to the kids' invasion of his castle with the sort of aggravation Mr. Wilson directed towards Dennis the Menace.

Johnson's Count isn't particularly frightening, but he does have a light touch in comic moments. He also gets an oddly touching relationship with Klaus, a former follower who also happens to be Van Helsing's son. Played by Geraint Wyn Davies — who himself would play a popular vampire on another Canadian series, "Forever Knight" — the scenes between Klaus and Alucard have sardonic humor and even a touch of emotional depth that seems pulled from another series altogether.

Though British actor Ingrid Pitt was memorably cast in 1971's "Countess Dracula," the Hammer Film Production actually took a highly fictionalized look at Elizabeth Bathory, a 17th century Hungarian noblewoman who reportedly murdered members of her family and, according to legend, bathed in blood to preserve her youth. It took another four-plus decades to bring a true female interpretation of Dracula, which occurred on the SyFy series "Van Helsing."

Tricia Helfer of "Battlestar Galactica" fame played Countess Olivia von Dracula in Seasons 4 and 5 of "Van Helsing," and quickly became the show's primary antagonist. The wife of Transylvanian Count Dalibor (Kim Coates), the Countess became the human host of an entity known as the Dark One, from which all vampires throughout history have spawned. Having expertly portrayed another all-powerful female character — Number Six — on "Galactica," Dracula's world-domination plans, which eventually include taking over the White House, seem entirely natural in Helfer's hands.