W.E Holloway - An Australian Count Dracula.

Background.

William Edwyn Crowther Holloway was born in Adelaide, South Australia on the 18th September 1885. 

W.E Holloway.

His parents were famous thespians W. J Holloway and Emily Jennings (stage name Kate Arden).

His father had emigrated from England to Australia with his family in 1856, he became a boilermaker by trade, but in 1862 he began to pursue an acting career. He married Maria McKewen in 1863, they would have three children, but she would sadly die in 1876. 

He married Emily Jennings in 1877, Emily was the widow of a Dr Jennings, she had a daughter from this marriage who would also become a famous actor, Essie Jenyns. Her first professional appearance would be at the Academy Of Music in Launceston, Tasmania, in 1886.

They would also have a son, William Edwyn.

Returning to England with his family in the autumn of 1888, his father joined the ranks of Henry Irving and Ellen Terry at the Lyceum Theatre, his father was so well thought of and talented that he was chosen to be one of Irving's understudies. Through this posting he would also become an acquaintance of Bram Stoker, the famous author mentions him in his book Personal Reminiscences of Henry Irving (1906).

By 1910 W.E Holloway was an actor manager with the actor Matheson Lang, with their troupe they toured the provinces extensively, and took Shakespeare to South Africa, India, Burmah and the Philippines.

On the 7th April 1913 his father, W. J, died.

Dracula.

Hamilton Deane

In 1923 actor and playwright Hamilton Deane was granted permission from Bram Stoker's widow Florence, to rewrite the famous novel into a stage production. The play opened on the 15th May 1924 at the Grand Theatre in Derby, and so successful was this play that it toured around the world. It toured the USA in October 1927 with a rewrite by John L. Balderston, and with Bela Lugosi as the Count, that version would be filmed by Universal Studios and released in 1931.

Bela Lugosi as Dracula, 1927.

Talking about the international performances of Dracula, Holloway told a reporter of the Leicester Chronicle; 

"I was taken round the Chinese theatres in Shanghai, and a delightful moment occurred when a very courteous gentleman spoke to my Chinese guide. 'Do you know who that was?' my guide asked me afterwards, to which I replied 'no,' 'That is the chief of the Pickpockets Guild,' I was told."

Holloway began performing the part of Count Dracula in 1927 opposite Hamilton Deane as Professor Van Helsing. Holloway would also direct the play on this 1927 - 1928 season.

As a marketing ploy, a ploy which would extend for decades, a nurse was alleged to be in attendance at performances to tend the patrons of a nervous disposition, as the Oxford Journal humorously put it;

"The power of suggestion knows no limitation. Stories were told of theatre goers who fainted during performances of 'Dracula' in London, and of hospital nurses in attendance. Such stories were repeated at the New Theatre on Monday night, but having sat through the show the audience came to the conclusion that the terrors of the play had been overestimated."

The supernatural strain, while giving it interest, does prevent it from being too nerve wracking, since vampires do not exist, but the fight against such evil powers is full of interest."

As the months and years passed by the cast changed bit by bit, Van Helsing was now played by Serge de Kazarine to great reviews, the Perthshire Advertiser Sept 1929;

Serge de Kazarine.

".....a drama of this kind with a plot and incidents, which are already familiar to the majority of playgoers, depends wholly for its success on the 'persuasiveness' of it's actors....

The heaviest work of all falls to M. Serge de Kazarine as the Dutch scientist, Professor Van Helsing. He throws himself wholly into the part, and the combined force and lucidity with which he expounds his theories temporarily convinces even the most sceptical that they are more than merely plausible.

M. de Kazarine's command of English is perfect, and his accent adds greatly to the artistic distinction of his personation.

Mr W.E Holloway is an admirably sinister and repellent Count Dracula; and Mr A. Edward Spronston shows decided power as the lunatic Renfield. Miss Nan Braunton skillfully differentiates the various stages in the illness of the vampire's victim, Mrs Harker, and impresses by her strong acting in the principle and most thrilling of scenes.

A. Edward Spronston as Renfield.

The Hull Daily Mail;

"Throughout the performance the audience were kept up to a high pitch, and so tense was the atmosphere set up that one felt that it was a pity that there had to be any change in the scenery.

As it always the case with such plays there are scenes which are left entirely to the imagination of the audience, and these are presented in such a vivid fashion as to lend an eerie, and very near terrifying atmosphere to the whole thing.

W.E Holloway, as the vampire Dracula played a remarkably real part. Mr A. Edward Spronston, the lunatic Renfield in the power of the Count, displayed wonderful aptitude and we saw only too little of him.

W.E Holloway as Count Dracula.

The Derbyshire Advertiser and Journal;

"Dracula, with all its horror and superstition, is a very good play, which stands high and alone on the pedestal of sensationalism. Mr Deane himself was as satisfactory as ever in the role of Van Helsing, whilst Dora Mary Patrick retained her part of the pale and listless victim of the vampire. 

The Count Dracula of W.E Holloway secured the acme of effect, and A. Edward Spronston gave a powerful study of the supposed madman, Renfield."

A Press Photo of Holloway as Dracula.

There were many actors that played Count Dracula in the Hamilton Deane Company over the years, Holloway was but one. While Bela Lugosi was treading the boards in the American version of the play, Holloway was doing the same in Britain, by the time the Universal Dracula was released in 1931 Holloway had already hung up his cloak. He would go on to appear in 29 movies and TV movies in his long career, sadly for posterity, none of them was Dracula.

W.E Holloway died at the age of 66 on 30th June 1952.

Dracula In Leicester.

    Dracula the stage play, adapted by Hamilton Deane and J.L Balderston, opened at the Palace Theatre, Leicester on Monday 30th July 1951 and it starred the great Bela Lugosi reprising his most famous role. 

    The play was on a six month tour of England, during which Lugosi also starred in the film "Mother Riley Meets the Vampire".

    

 On stage the star worked very hard as each night saw two performances, one at six o'clock and another at 8.15. 
    The Palace Theatre management took no risks with squeamish patrons, as a note in the programme shows; 
    "The management cannot be responsible for patrons who may faint or feel unwell, but first aid attendants are in the theatre throughout the performance."

The Palace Theatre, sadly demolished in 1959.

    "Old John" (a Leicester Evening Mail correspondent) went to see Mr Lugosi for a piece in his "Round the Clock Tower" column on 31st July.
    His first impression of Lugosi was that just as Dracula sleeps by day, so does Bela Lugosi, as he took a look around the city well into the night and in the morning he went to bed.
    When Old John eventually got to speak with the star Lugosi confided that "after 24 years of Count Dracula I am waiting for someone to find me a comedy role." 
    Old John writes "The hypnotic eyes lit up as he admitted a partiality for blood oranges and raw steaks", and notes "off stage Lugosi is a quiet charming man who collects stamps in his spare time and is accompanied everywhere by his wife Lillian......but when I ask his age.....ah the artist's temperament appeared then and I changed the subject hastily, fearing a Lugosi scowl."

    Another local newspaper, The Illustrated Leicester Chronicle, sent reporter Douglas Goodlad to interview Lugosi on 4th August.
    He begins his article by informing his readers that Lugosi hardly wears any make-up on stage and he achieves his "horrific countenance" by facial expression.
     To Lillian Lugosi he asks "does he frighten you?" to which she answered that he did not.
     Lugosi said "I love the part, it's fascinating. In Transylvania there are such things as Vampire bats and blood thirsty creatures......it is easy to see how legends have grown up about creatures half-human, half-bat."

    As they said goodbye, Goodlad noted "he didn't give me one of those sinister `goodbyes` we've heard from him on the screen, nor did he disappear in a  cloud of white mist.
    Instead his wife said `Bela your tie's crooked, let me fix it` and that little domestic touch banished the un-dead Count as effectively as a stake through the heart. Bela smiled and said `thank you` and it was a warm human smile."

   Sadly Bela Lugosi would fail to resurrect his film career and he was destined to end his days with parts in low budget films.     His last being the wonderfully bad "Plan 9 from Outer Space", directed by Ed Wood, which is well worth seeing and now has cult status.
   After divorcing his wife Lillian in 1955 and marrying again, Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack in his Los Angeles home on 16th August 1956, aged 73.