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All images remain the property of their original owners. All rights reserved. In Eastern Europe RED HAIR was associated with vampires. link link The Taga Clan was an Irish Vampire Clan (rough & tumble – loved to get into fights, were outspoken,
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‘I was now in a wing of the castle further to the right than the rooms I knew and a storey lower down…
I suppose I must have fallen asleep…I was not alone…’ (Stoker 1897, “Dracula”, Chapter 3)
Come meet my darkest Archetype…
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‘In the moonlight opposite me were three young women…they threw no shadow on the floor…Two were dark, and had high aquiline noses, like the Count, and great dark, piercing eyes, that seemed to be almost red…The other was fair…with great masses of golden hair and eyes like pale sapphires…All three had brilliant white teeth that shone like pearls against the ruby of their voluptuous lips…burning desire that they would kiss me with those red lips…The girl went on her knees, and bent over me, simply gloating. There was a deliberate voluptuousness which was both thrilling and repulsive…I could feel the soft, shivering touch of the lips on the super sensitive skin of my throat, and the hard dents of two sharp teeth…I closed my eyes in languorous ecstasy and waited, waited with beating heart.’ “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…In the novel the three vampire women are not individually named. Collectively, they are known as the ‘sisters’, and are at one point described as the ‘weird sisters’…” link |
(1931) The Brides were played by (in uncredited roles): Geraldine Dvorak, Cornelia Thaw and Dorothy Tree – with Bela Lugosi as Dracula. I remember the first Halloween I dressed-up like one of the brides. I was pretty young (maybe 6 or 7). I had found a dress in a thrift store that I thought resembled a “shroud” and happily went out trick-or-treating in it, safely assuming I would be recognized as one of the undead. I knocked on the door of this one house. A large man answered the door and he and his wife proceeded to gush over my “princess” costume! I immediately corrected them, declaring myself a VAMPIRE – not a princess!!!! (I should’ve worn fangs…)
Subsequent Halloween vamping has been carried-out with a heavy dose of eye makeup, red lips, and flowing black dresses. (I haven’t been mistaken for a princess since.)
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(1936) Gloria Holden played Countess Marya Zaleska.   Where to begin? Although I was way too young to grasp the concept,
“The lesbian vampire has been a trope in literature dating back to Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu’s 1872 novella “Carmilla”. Dracula’s Daughter marked the first time that the trope was incorporated into a film.” link Being a kid, the only thing I “grasped” was her darkly mysterious, enigmatic presence – especially powerful being that she was the one brunette in a sea of blondes. |
    Anne Rice has cited the film as inspiration for her vampire novels, and named a bar in Queen of the Damned “Dracula’s Daughter” in its honor. |
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The Addams Family TV series (1964-1966) With her long black hair and skin-tight, black dress, ‘Tish’ more than exemplified the iconic Vampiress! She even raised man-eating plants – and was especially fond of an “African Strangler” named Cleopatra. (I wonder if this is where I subconsciously formed my love and fascination for carnivorous plants.)
Their rival, The Munsters: “a satire of both traditional monster movies and the wholesome family fare of the era”, supposedly achieved a higher Nielsen rating. Not surprising:
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HONORABLE MENTIONS
LUNA
Mark of the Vampire (1935)
Played by Carroll Borland
MARIANNE
Brides of Dracula (1960)
Played by Yvonne Monlaur
VAMPIRESS
Dracula, Prince of Darkness (1966)
Played by Barbara Shelley
House M - 