Fate has a funny way of bringing people together. After searching for years for an alternate version of the film Blood of Dracula’s Castle, where one of the characters turns into a werewolf, I sent an E-mail in to the letters section of this website to indicate I had finally located it. At about this same time, one of the stars of this almost 40-year-old film went looking for information about it, saw that letter I wrote and contacted the editor (Nolan), who forwarded her E-mail to me. Never being one to miss the opportunity for an interview, I contacted her immediately and found out she now resides in Las Vegas. By nothing more than sheer coincidence, I was headed there for a brief vacation just two days later! So less than a week after we first met, I was half way across the country at a restaurant in the Las Vegas Hilton where I discovered:
“I Was a Teenage Blood Slave! - The Tricia Anderson Story”
Tricia Anderson’s screen time may have been limited, but in a film with a cast of only ten characters it’s pretty hard to get lost in the crowd! Her one and only film role, as a prisoner of the vampires being kept alive for her blood, was not an easy one. She spends most of the movie chained to the cold stone wall of a real dungeon with her arms suspended over her head. Fortunately she made it through this Al Adamson masterpiece unscathed and survived to tell the tale:
ED Tucker: How did you get into acting and become involved with Blood of Dracula’s Castle?
Tricia Anderson: I had been singing professionally since I was 11. I was 20 at the time we made that film and I was Trisha Bauer then. After graduating from high school in Phoenix, Arizona, I was supposed to go on tour with a band but I discovered they were not the type of people to be on the road with. I was already packed and ready to go somewhere, so I decided to go to Hollywood. I told my mother and she said you’re not going alone, I’m coming with you! My family was very supportive. My father, very difficultly, paid for everything and would come up on the weekends. We lived in a condemned hotel, The Mirimar, on Alvarado Street which actually burned down while we were living there. I had been doing some small things here and there, including singing at the Red Velvet on the Sunset Strip, for the USO, and doing a PBS play with Henry Beckman. My agent called me one day and said she had a job for me. I was going to be doing a horror movie and the pay was $300. She said it would be good experience so I decided to do it.
ET: What was it like working with the other veteran actors?
TA: John Carradine was very nice. He used to sit during his breaks and talk to himself. He would recite Shakespeare and drink milk.
ET: (laughing) So he wasn’t drunk while he was on the set?
TA: Well he might have been. He was pretty out of it. The two people that I remember that were really nice were Alex D’Arcy; he was the nicest man, and Ray Young who played Mango.
ET: What about Paula Raymond?
TA: She and Vicki Volante really kept to themselves. She seemed very nice but I never talked to her at all. I think Al Adamson had the hots for Vicki. I saw an interview with Robert Dix and he said the same thing.
ET: How was Robert Dix to work with?
TA: I had nothing to do with him whatsoever. He just kept to himself. The blond girl who was chained to the wall, whose name I can’t remember, and I were really segregated from the rest of the cast. After they completed filming we had to go back and do another scene. She and I drove back up in her car and did that for a couple of days. They didn't pay us anything extra, didn't even pay for her gas, and we were too naive to know the difference. She was married to a cameraman who worked on the “Price is Right”. She had a house up in Hollywood Hills, where I visited.
ET: Did you associate much with the crew?
TA: Al Adamson was always very nice to me. There was one guy on the crew who liked me. He was the guy who had the dogs in the scene where they are chasing Robert Dix. He was also a grip and took care of a lot of things on the set. He had been with Al Adamson for a while.
ET: Was that John “Bud” Cardos?
TA: Yes, I think that’s probably who it was. He was the only one on the crew I talked to but I talked to him a lot. He was very nice.
ET: Did you have to live in the castle while you were filming?
TA: We lived in a motel. The other dungeon girl and I shared a room together. Most of the cast and crew all stayed at the same motel. It was an old fashioned place with neon signs that flashed on and off all night.
ET: What were the conditions like on the set of castle?
TA: We were in the dungeon. We were never taken through the castle. I never saw any of the rest of it other than the dungeon. We stayed in the dungeon and did the scene outside with the cloaks on. That was a fun scene, I really got into it.
ET: Did you have to do any scenes with the rats or spiders?
TA: No, they must have done those later when we weren’t around.
ET: Was there a reason you did not get screen credit on the film?
TA: I was supposed to. They told me I would get a credit. I did all the screaming. Every scream you hear in the picture is me. They wanted to pay me extra for that but I asked for a credit instead. They said they were going to give me one but they never did.
ET: You even had a line of dialog in the film.
TA: The other girl had a line too but they cut it. She was from France and her English wasn’t too hot. Her line was “watch out for the butler” and it came out “watch out for zee but-a-leer”. All these years I never knew I didn’t get a credit because I never saw the film.
ET: Did you know it was released?
TA: I didn’t find that out until later. My first husband and I were on the road with David Merrick’s Promises, Promises in 1971 and ‘72. Some of the cast and crew had a break one day and went to see a movie. They came back and kept shouting “look out”, “look out” at me. I thought oh no, they saw THAT movie! It was apparently the second film on a double feature they saw. They thought it was a comedy!
ET: Was there any talk of you working with Al Adamson again after this picture?
TA: I got a call from my agent and she told me they wanted me to do another picture. She said she had turned it down because it was a nude and she knew I would not do it. They promised her if I would do this nude motorcycle movie, which they did get made; they would give me another movie after that where I could sing. I told her she was right to turn it down because I would not have done it. I did see him again one day, along with Rex Carlton and Frank Gorshin (The Riddler from Batman), at Cantor’s Deli on Fairfax in L.A. They greeted me warmly and I introduced them to my mother. That was the last time I heard from Al Adamson.
ET: What did you do after that?
TA: I have had a varied career. My first husband, Robert Underwood, had studied opera at La Scala and trained me. We moved to Vancouver, B.C. He was born there and began an acting career. He did a TV series, The Beachcombers, dinner theatre, and commercials. I sang with The Vancouver Opera when I was 8 mo. pregnant and worked as an inker and painter. I worked on Hanna-Barbera's cartoon series, Wait Till Your Father Gets Home at Canawest Studios, where I met Joseph Barbera. I almost got deported because my work visa was for costume design and screen writing, (I was designing costumes and doing a re-write for a play that was eventually bought by CBC radio and performed live.) I didn't know that I should have gotten another visa. I decided in 1981 that I wanted to come home to the USA. I had previously lived in Las Vegas in 1968 and worked as a keno runner at the Stardust Hotel and knew that I could get work here. Robert was with the stagehands union and worked here on the show, Jubilee. I worked in multiple areas of a local bank for 13 years, plus continuing with classical recitals and shows with Robert. Robert was 26 yrs. older than me and wanted to retire to Vancouver - he left in 1994. I met my husband, Graham, at the bank. He was exporting classic cars to his native country, Australia and had come into the bank to pick up a wire transfer. Now, my sons are in the entertainment industry here with the 80's band, The Reflex. They have been performing professionally for the past 7 years, including The House of Blues and The Monte Carlo Hotel. Jason helped start the popular band, Purple Reign, out of high school, and Rob played with a show band in Indonesia for over 9 months. I want to thank Graham for doing the original research on Blood of Dracula’s Castle and finding the video for me.
ET: Tricia, thank you so much for your time and sharing your memories.
TA: It was my pleasure.
"Retrorama" is ©2007 by ED Tucker. All graphics this page, except where otherwise noted, are creations of Nolan B. Canova. All contents of Nolan's Pop Culture Review are ©2007 by Nolan B. Canova.
