Count Dracula - Portraying the Be(a)st

1. Gary Oldman

Actor | The Dark Knight

Gary Oldman is a talented English movie star and character actor, renowned for his expressive acting style. One of the most celebrated thespians of his generation, with a diverse career encompassing theatre, film and television, he is known for his roles as Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy (1986), ...

2. Christopher Lee

Actor | Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones

Sir Christopher Frank Carandini Lee was perhaps the only actor of his generation to have starred in so many films and cult saga. Although most notable for personifying bloodsucking vampire, Dracula, on screen, he portrayed other varied characters on screen, most of which were villains, whether it ...

3. Bela Lugosi

Actor | Dracula

Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded ...

4. Max Schreck

Actor | Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens

Max Schreck was born in Berlin. He worked in an apprenticeship until his father's death before enrolling into a school for acting. He toured the country with his peers and was a member of several theaters until he became a part of Max Reinhardt's group of innovative German actors. He played mostly ...

5. Klaus Kinski

Actor | Nosferatu - Phantom der Nacht

Klaus Kinski was born as Klaus Günter Karl Nakszynski in Zoppot, Free City of Danzig (now Sopot, Poland), to Susanne (Lutze), a nurse, and Bruno Nakszynski, a pharmacist. He grew up in Berlin, was drafted into the German army in 1944 and captured by British forces in Holland. After the war he began...

6. Thomas Kretschmann

Actor | King Kong

Thomas Kretschmann was born in East Germany. Before becoming an actor, he was a swimmer. He has acted in several popular American movies, such as Resident Evil: Apocalypse (2004), The Pianist (2002), U-571 (2000), In Enemy Hands (2004), etc. He has three children, Nicolas, Stella and Sascha with ...

7. Gerard Butler

Actor | 300

Gerard James Butler was born in Paisley, Scotland, to Margaret and Edward Butler, a bookmaker. His family is of Irish origin. Gerard spent some of his very early childhood in Montreal, Quebec, but was mostly raised, along with his older brother and sister, in his hometown of Paisley. His parents ...

8. Carlos Villarías

Actor | Nostradamus

Carlos Villarías was born on July 7, 1892 in Cordoba, Spain. He was an actor, known for Nostradamus (1937), El cuerpo del delito (1930) and Gran Hotel (1944). He died on April 27, 1976 in Los Angeles, California, USA.

9. Frank Langella

Actor | Frost/Nixon

Frank Langella was born in Bayonne, New Jersey, to Angelina and Frank A. Langella, a business executive. He is of Italian descent.

A stage and screen actor of extreme versatility, Frank Langella won acclaim on the New York stage in "Seascape" and followed it up with the title role in the Edward Gorey...

10. John Carradine

Actor | The Grapes of Wrath

John Carradine, the son of a reporter/artist and a surgeon, grew up in Poughkeepsie, New York. He attended Christ Church School and Graphic Art School, studying sculpture, and afterward roamed the South selling sketches. He made his acting debut in "Camille" in a New Orleans theatre in 1925. ...

11. Peter Fonda

Actor | Easy Rider

Peter Henry Fonda was born in New York City, to legendary screen star Henry Fonda and Ontario, Canada-born New York socialite Frances Brokaw (born Frances Ford Seymour). He was the younger brother of actress and activist Jane Fonda and the father of actress Bridget Fonda.

Fonda made his professional...

12. Lon Chaney Jr.

Actor | The Wolf Man

American character actor whose career was influenced (and often overshadowed) by that of his father, silent film star Lon Chaney. The younger Chaney was born while his parents were on a theatrical tour, and he joined them onstage for the first time at the age of six months. However, as a young man,...

13. Miles O'Keeffe

Actor | Ator 2: L'invincibile Orion

Attended the Air Force Academy Prep School after high school. He quit and switched over to Mississippi State to play football, but was forced to quit when he broke his hand. He then transferred to the University of the South, and graduated with a B.A. in psychology. He worked a year as a counselor ...

14. Francis Lederer

Actor | One Rainy Afternoon

Frantisek Lederer was born on November 6th, 1899, in Czechoslovakia. His father was a leather merchant, and young Frantisek began his working life as a department store delivery boy in Prague. He fell in love with acting from a young age, and was soon on stage touring Moravia and then all over ...

15. Alex D'arcy

16. Zandor Vorkov

Actor | Dracula vs. Frankenstein

While living in Asheville, NC, Raphael Peter Engel (screen name: Zandor Vorkov) assembled a team for Unity in Diversity, a city-wide event addressing the sacredness of all life. Members of four cultural groups came together from the four directions to sing, dance and proclaim their oneness. Engel ...

17. Paul Naschy

Actor | El retorno del Hombre Lobo

Paul Naschy reigns supreme as the true king of Spanish horror cinema. He was born Jacinto Molina Alvarez on September 6, 1934, in Madrid, Spain. His father ran a successful fur business. Naschy grew up during the Spanish Civil War, and sought escape from the real-life horrors around him in ...

18. Udo Kier

Actor | Hunters

Beginning his life with the same flair for the dramatic that would come to define his career, Udo Kier was born in Köln, Germany near the end of the 2nd world war. The hospital was bombed and buried Kier and his mother in the rubble. Both survived, and Kier would later move to London as a young ...

19. Jamie Gillis

Actor | The Opening of Misty Beethoven

Born in New York City, Jamie Gillis trained as a legitimate actor. In the early 1970s he drifted into performing in pornographic films, and continued to work in that field through the late 1990s. Despite the occasional foray into "legitimate" film, such as a cameo in Nighthawks (1981), Gillis ...

20. George Hamilton

Actor | Zorro: The Gay Blade

Noted these days for his dashing, sporting, jet-setting playboy image and perpetually bronzed skin tones in commercials, film spoofs and reality shows, George Hamilton was, at the onset, a serious contender for dramatic film stardom. Born George Stevens Hamilton in Memphis, TN, on August 12, 1939, ...

21. Leslie Nielsen

Actor | Airplane!

Leslie William Nielsen was born in Regina, Saskatchewan, and raised in Tulita (formerly Fort Norman), Northwest Territories. His mother, Mabel Elizabeth (Davies), was Welsh. His father, Ingvard Eversen Nielsen, was a Danish-born Mountie and a strict disciplinarian. Leslie studied at the Academy of ...

22. Duncan Regehr

Actor | The Monster Squad

Duncan Regehr was born in Lethbridge, Alberta and raised in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. In his youth he distinguished himself as a champion figure skater, then had his own radio program at age 16. Regehr was also an Olympic boxing contender, and a classically trained Shakespearean stage ...

23. Edmund Purdom

Actor | Mil gritos tiene la noche

Gifted with aristocratic good-looks and a rich speaking voice, English-born thespian Edmund Purdom graced dozens of European genre films in a career that spanned over 50 years.

Born in Hertfordshire and educated in Stratton-on-the-Fosse, Purdom made his professional stage debut at age 21 and worked ...

24. Peter Stormare

Actor | Fargo

Peter Stormare was born in Arbrå, Gävleborgs län, Sweden, to Gunhild (Holm) and Karl Ingvar Storm. He began his acting career at the Royal National Theatre of Sweden, performing for eleven years. In 1990 he became the Associate Artistic Director at the Tokyo Globe Theatre and directed productions ...

25. Luke Evans

Actor | Dracula Untold

Luke George Evans was born in Pontypool, Wales, and grew up in Aberbargoed, in the south of Wales. He is the son of Yvonne (Lewis) and David Evans. He moved to Cardiff at the age 17. He then won a scholarship to the London Studio Centre, and graduated in 2000.

He starred in many of London's West End...

26. Jack Palance

Actor | City Slickers

Jack Palance quite often exemplified evil incarnate on film, portraying some of the most intensely feral villains witnessed in 1950s westerns and melodrama. Enhanced by his tall, powerful build, icy voice, and piercing eyes, he earned two "Best Supporting Actor" nominations early in his career. It ...

27. Luke Roberts

Actor | Ransom

Luke Roberts is a British/Canadian actor and producer whose first role out of LAMDA was in an episode of HBO's Band of Brothers directed by Tom Hanks. Luke is perhaps best known as the series lead and producer of CBS crime procedural Ransom. The show ran for three seasons and follows Eric ...

28. Rudolf Martin

Actor | Ford v Ferrari

Born and raised in West Berlin, Rudolf moved with his family from Berlin to Paris to Italy, arriving in the United States a short time after his high school graduation from the Universite de Paris. While studying at the Lee Strasberg Theatre Institute, he landed his first professional role in the ...

29. Claes Bang

Actor | The Square

Claes Kasper Bang is a Danish actor and musician. He is best known for playing the leading role of Christian in Ruben Östlund's 2017 film The Square. For that role he won the European Film Award for Best Actor, being the first Dane to do so. He played the role of Sasha Mann in the final series of ...

30. Javier Botet

Actor | It

Javier Botet was born on July 30, 1977 in Ciudad Real, Spain. He is an actor and writer, known for It (2017), Amigo (2019) and The Conjuring 2 (2016).

31. Doug Jones

Actor | Hellboy II: The Golden Army

The youngest of four brothers, Doug Jones was born on May 24, 1960, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and grew up in the city's Northeastside. After attending Bishop Chatard High School, he headed off to Ball State University, where he graduated in 1982 with a Bachelor's degree in Telecommunications and a ...