#SHERIDAN LE FANU 200TH BIRTHDAY : THE MAN WHO PUT THE CHILL INTO VICTORIAN GHOST STORIES

#tbt #throwbackthursday.... ok we're going back. BACK 200 years in fact! Because, today is the anniversary of the birth of one Joseph Thomas SHERIDAN Le Fanu...200 years ago this very day in 1814. Born at 45 Lower Dominick Street, Dublin, into a literary family of Huguenot origins, Le Fau would become a celebrated writer of Gothic tales and mystery novels, the leading ghost-story writer of the nineteenth century and central to the development of the genre in the Victorian era. We salute Mr Le Fanu today, for his vampire novella "Carmilla", which formed the framework for the 1970 Hammer film, 'The Vampire Lovers' starring Ingrid Pitt and Peter Cushing.. Please join us in wishing a Happy 200th Birthday to #SheridanLeFanu!

 Sheridan Le Fanu

The Vampire Lovers

INGRID PITT AND THE THEATRE ROYAL CUSHING BUST : OCTOBER 1998

OCTOBER 1998: Ingrid Pitt Unveils Bust Of Peter Cushing 

At Chatham Theatre:

Ingrid said on her website at the time: 'One of the best `do's' I've been to recently was down in Chatham. A group of theatre lovers have got together to try and save The Theatre Royal. It was a project dear to the heart of Peter Cushing and it now looks as if, with the council backing it, there maybe a future for the derelict theatre. I was there to open an exhibition of Peter's water colours and unveil a bust of his head.'

She goes on to say, 'Sheila Gray, secretary of the restoration group, rang me a couple of days after my visit and told me that at last the local council have decided to help out with a welcome £50,000. Now I don't want to claim that my visit had anything to do with the councils belated magnanimity but..... whatever the reason, I was asked back in October and presented with a life-size head of Peter Cushing. Tit for tat! In Vampire Lovers he decapitated me - now I've got my own back. I wish Peter had been there to see it, it would have suited his sense of humour!'