Martin Greenberg - Celebrity Vampires

[dem]

Martin H. Greenberg (ed.) - Celebrity Vampires (Daw, Oct. 1995)

"19 brand-new tales of those who prey on the famous - and stars who prey upon the unwary ..."

Introduction - Ed Gorman

Carol Nelson Douglas - Dracula On The Rocks
Max Allen Collins - Traces Of Red
Peter Crowther - Too Short A Death
Barbara Collins - Sweet Dreams, Norma Jeane
Barbara Paul - Totally Tallulah
John Lutz - Plague
Kristine Kathryn Rusch - The Beautiful, The Damned
Jon L. Breen - Woollcott And The Vamp
Karen Haber - The Vampire Of The Opera
Tracy A. Knight - Blessed By His Dying Tongue
Roman A. Ranieri - A Singular Event On A Night In 1912
J. N. Williamson - Vladimir's Conversion
Wendi Lee & Terry Beatty - Death On The Mississippi
Mike Baker - The Swashbuckler And The Vampire
Barb D'Amato - I Vant To Be Alone
Norman Partridge - Undead Origami
Gary A. Braunbeck - Bloody Sam
Bill Crider - King Of The Night
P. N. Elrod - A Night At The Horse Opera

Blurb:

THE DARKER SIDE OF FAME
Vampires, those seductive and deadly creatures of the night, are a topic which has evoked tales that run the gamut from horrific to humorous to intensely erotic. Now such masterful evokers of all things otherworldly as Carole Nelson Douglas, Max Allan Collins, Peter Crowther, John Lutz, R N. Elrod, and their fellow explorers of the dark side give us vampires as we've never seen them before in this all-original collection of 19 tales about the famous and infamous as both stalkers and prey.

From a Catskills song and dance team to an act of kindness by Marilyn Monroe, from a mysterious admirer of Tallulah Bankhead to an opera singer who might steal more than the show, here are unforgettable encounters with those who thirst to drink the rich dark wine of fame.


In the mid-seventies the late Robert Bloch wrote an in-jokey yarn, EFFT, concerning an extra-terrestrial attending a SF convention and worked in a jibe about "a group of fans explaining to Marty Greenberg how to edit an anthology" which tells you quite how prevalent this guy's collections are. I don't mean to be rotten, but to my mind Greenberg's collections work better when he has someone of Robert Weinberg, Stefan Dziemianowicz or Isaac Asamov's stature to share editing duties. Left to his own devices and invariably you end up with a couple of gems padded out with work which has a kind of The New Munsters-esque feel about it, if you get my drift, and that won't do at all.

Celebrity Vampires is another such curates egg, nineteen original tales of screen, literary and music biz legends going or gone Nosfetatu.To give you some idea, obvious choice Elvis Presley is twice given a vampire makeover and in Bill Crider's King of the Night even forges a new career as an Elvis impersonator, though disappointingly he doesn't get around to remaking Blue Hawaii. J.N. Williamson and John L. Breen score brownie points for originality, dragging Lenin & Rasputin and Woolcott & Theda Bara in on the action respectively while better still, Gary Braubeck relates the terrible ordeal undergone by Sam Peckinpah and Warren Oates down Mexico way on the shoot of Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia. Marilyn Monroe, Tallulah Bankhead, Bram Stoker and Conan-Doyle likewise either become one with, or encounter, the clan of clammy bastards. I would've liked to have seen some contemporary artistes given the treatment meself - Madonna, Kylie, Nick Cave, Juliette Lewis, M.E.S.! - but i guess there are certain libel laws preventing that sort of thing.

Overall impression, not so bad,pretty much on a par with the same editors similarly hit 'n miss Dracula Prince Of Darkness and a definite improvement on that monumentally dreary Phantoms (as in "Of The Opera") yawn-o-vision job, but then fair's fair, what the fuck do i know?

[bradstevens]

admin said:

Martin H. Greenberg (ed.) - Celebrity Vampires (Daw, Oct. 1995)
Bloody Sam finds Sam Peckinpah and Warren Oates in Mexico working on insane cult classic Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia. There's a graveyard scene in that film, and Gary A. Braunbeck utilises it to his advantage in one of the picks of an entertaining collection.

This sounds like something I have to read. If anybody happens to come across a spare copy of Greenberg's book, I'd be extremely grateful if they'd pick it up for me.

I was thinking about Warren Oates a few days ago while watching the terrific new Criterion DVD of Monte Hellman's TWO-LANE BLACKTOP (as I'm sure I've mentioned here before, I'm the author of a book about Hellman), and marvelling yet again at Oates' performance, surely among the finest in the history of cinema.

[dem]

Two Elvis sightings.

Tracy A. Knight - Blessed By His Dying Tongue: Elvis, bloated, depressed and so very, very tired, wants to quit the business but Colonel Tom won't hear of it. The unscrupulous manager decides compromise can be reached when he meets Cal Fincher, an Elvis-worshipping vampire as now his meal-ticket can disappear from the public eye - in a coffin - and get all the rest he wants. The comeback will go down like the Resurrection!

What Parker didn't count on was the King despising his unlife even more than he did the old one. He hates having to drink blood, he misses Lisa Marie and, most of all, he misses his long-dead Mom ....

Bill Crider - King Of The Night: Now we join Elvis fifteen years after he faked his own death (you'd think he would have come up with a more dignified exit, wouldn't you?), checking out the World Weekly News to see what he's been up to this of late. Why the vanishing act? He'd achieved everything a man could reasonably ask from life and plenty more .... except "a reason to give a damn".

Elvis has all the reason he needs now. For over a decade, a serial killer has evaded the police and only Presley realises that the culprit is a vampire who is out to prove that he is the true "King of the Night". And the slayings always take place in the vicinity of a venue hosting a contest for Elvis impersonators ....

There are some lovely touches, quite the cutest of which is Presley rediscovering the thrill of live performance before a small audience and carving out a new career as one of his own wannabes.

[dem]

Norman Partridge - Undead Origami: To avoid the draft, Walter Sands, [American] football prospect, takes a job at the Desert Inn as Howard Hughes' personal flycatcher. He'd have been better taking his chances in 'Nam. All is weird but just about OK until the night KLAS-TV screen Hughes' favourite of his own movies, Dracula In New Orleans ("starring Robert Mitchum, Jane Russell ... and Hoagy Carmichael as Renfield"), and the reclusive billionaire sets to folding deadly bats from black paper.

Mike Baker - The Swashbuckler And The Vampire: An ageing, lonesome Douglas Fairbanks is lured back to his old Californian mansion by a brash young vampire. The blood-sucker means him no harm. He just reckons an epic sword-fight with his screen idol will cheer them both up.

Roman A. Ranieri - A Singular Event On A Night In 1912: "Ah, but Sir Arthur, I sit here before you as living proof that immortality is attainable."

Has all that vampire research turned Bram Stoker's head, or is the bearded gent who sits before Sir Arthur Conan Doyle exactly who he says he is - Vlad Tepes? The visitor explains that, regrettably, he had to kill Stoker shortly after publication of Dracula when he learned the author was planning a non-fiction sequel. Stoker's subsequent works were completed by Tepes, hence their comparative mediocrity. And the purpose of tonight's get together? The Impaler is such a fan of Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories that he is prepared to bestow the dark gift. Should the author decline the invitation, he will, of course have to die. Fortunately, Sir Arthur has prepared for such an eventuality. File under "a bit preposterous."

[dem]

My absolute favourite from the collection first time around, and can't see me changing my mind this time, either.

Gary A. Braunbeck - Bloody Sam: "I'm a macho-minded misogynist whose films glorify violence and promote defeatism through sadistic imagery at the cost of traditional linear structure in my narratives. Or don't you read the critics?"

Sam Peckinpah and Warren Oates down Mexico way on the Bring Me The Head Of Alfredo Garcia shoot. Sam has fallen in love with Lanca, a beautiful nine year old he found skivvying in a whorehouse and plans to adopt her as his daughter. He's even written a walk on part for her at close of Warren and Isela Vaga's grave-robbing scene. Pito Perez, a young local hired by Peck as location manager, cautions that tomorrow sees the beginning of the Maize festival. "A young girl must not go near a graveyard during this time for one of the Lords of the Night might take her as a sacrifice to Xilonen." Sam, respectful of the culture, is nonetheless behind schedule and can't afford another delay. Wolves attack the crew. The production assistant is ripped to pieces. A monstrous owl sinks it's huge talons into Lanca and carries her away. When the little girl is eventually returned, barely alive and bearing the tell-tale twin punctures to her neck, it is to issue Sam a warning - spoken in the voice of - Montezuma!

In a final act of defiance of The Wild Bunch proportions, Bloody Sam musters his loyal cast and crew for a graveyard showdown with the Montezuma's vampire army. Sam reasons they need a genuine severed head for the movie anyway as the prop is rubbish!

[dem]

Max Allen Collins - Traces Of Red: Another good 'un. This time it's Bobby Darin's turn under the spotlight (M.A.C. is a Mack The Knife fan). We join Darin aged seventeen, when he's still known as Walden Roberts, and performing bongo duties for Maria Villarias, an impossibly glamorous flamenco dancer whose age you wouldn't believe. Walden's star soon eclipses that of his dream lover (he treats the audience to a one man song and dance routine between sets), and Maria doesn't mind in the slightest. But there's a black cloud hanging over Walden. As an infant he suffered chronic health problems and the family doctor reckoned it would be a miracle if he saw sixteen. "Hey, no big deal. If I can hang on to my mid-twenties, I can maybe live a normal life. Like to say, thirty-five." Worse, his jailbird father's mob buddies want a slice of the pie. Maria can solve all his problems in an instant, but will he accept her bloody kiss?

Barb D'Amato - I Vant To Be Alone: Last night man walked on the moon and today Hal Briskman, a brash young reporter, has secured the scoop of his career; an interview with the notoriously reclusive Greta Garbo. What's her big secret, and why did she quit the business. Could it be that "ethereal woman" no longer shows up on film? OK, but a bit too flimsy for me, kind of "quiet horror" minus the horror.

Barbara Collins - Sweet Dreams, Norma Jeane: Marilyn Monroe's act of compassion toward an injured bat in the park has disastrous repercussions for Dr. Hilgenfeldt, her client-molesting psychiatrist and drug dispenser. Nursed back to health, the bat reverts to human form and 'Johnny' surreptitiously looks out for the woman he loves. It's a very sad story.

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Jon L. Breen - Woollcott And The Vamp: Fresh from slating stage-play The Blue Flame in his New York Times column, the famously acerbic critic, Alexander Woollcott, is invited to meet its star performer, Theda Bara. The events of that night leave him wondering if there is more to her vampire image than ghoulish make-up and hammy horror props. Recorded by Woollcott for his Town Crier radio show, but never broadcast, the only surviving copy being a vinyl bootleg recorded by the studio engineer. Does the lovely Miss 'Arab Death' feature in any other horror stories?

[bobby]

    Theda Bara is referenced in "Pickman's Other Model (1929)" by Caitlin R. Kiernan. One of the paintings of the title character has her posing with a skeleton in imitation of a famous publicity photo of Theda Bara. Except the skeleton in the painting isn't completely human...

[dem]

Thanks Bobby, that's exactly the type of thing I was after. I'm pretty sure Kim Newman will have found a place for Theda in his Anno Dracula saga - can anyone confirm?