Dracula - Dead and Loving It

You can do a lot of good in this lifetime, even Vampires can. One man took his modern-day role as Count Dracula and turned it into a calling. He led bloodsucker fests, actually blood drives organized in cooperation with the Red Cross. This is in contrast to the spirit of the original Dracula, who possessed a dark and evil soul, as described by author Bram Stoker.

Ottomar Rodolphe Vlad Dracula Prince Kretzulesco, an eccentric German antiques dealer who became a modern-day Dracula after he was adopted by a descendant of the man who spawned the Dracula legend, has died, Romanian news agencies reported Sunday. He was 67.

Kretzulesco, born Ottomar Berbig, met Ekaterina Olympia Kretzulesco, a childless descendant of Vlad the Impaler III, in the 1980s. Vlad the Impaler's cruelty inspired the bloodsucking Dracula of Bram Stoker's 1897 novel.

Kretzulesco apparently wanted to continue the family line and was impressed by Berbig's black curly hair and bushy mustache, which she said gave him a Transylvanian air, and she legally adopted him, the private NewsIn agency reported.

He is survived by Frankenstein, Godzilla, King Kong, the Blob, the Mummy, the Wolf Man and the Creature from the Black Lagoon.

[International Herald Tribune]