Who is the actor to have played count Dracula the most times and who do you think was the best?
I’d say a stage actor will have played Dracula on the most occasions. Christopher Lee (who is a wonderful man – I have met him twice) has played Dracula in at least 8 films as a lead role. Most of these portrayals were for Hammer Pictures Ltd. Count Dracula has appeared in hundreds of films (quite literally) and on such diverse TV shows as Doctor Who (in “The Chase” an early episode with the first Doctor) and Scooby Doo. I could not possibly say who was the all time best Dracula (I have seen about 30 Dracula related films) because I have not seen every performance by every actor. Of the actors I have seen play Dracula Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi and Gary Oldman were the best. Of those I would say Christopher Lee would be best overall because he played the role on more occasions than the others and gave a good performance even with some terrible scripts. My favourite Dracula film is actually the 1920’s silent classic “Nosferatu”, but the film (despite following the plot of Dracula) doe
Christopher Lee played Dracula the most times, he was the Count from 1958 until the early 1970s in the British Hammer Horror movies series. I think Max Shreck was the best Dracula. Even though it wasn’t an official Dracula movie, the 1922 F. W. Murnau film “Nosferatu” sticks almost exactly to Bram Stoker’s story and the production was actually sued by Stoker’s widow for plagiarism and she won the case. A judge ordered all copies of “Nosferatu” to be destroyed. Luckily for us, some copies of it survived. It’s the first and creepiest Dracula film ever made. Frank Langella gets an honourable mention in second place. He played the Count on Broadway before appearing in John Badham’s 1979 movie version. It is the only official Dracula film that is truly frightening.
