Renfield



In the original Bram Stoker novel, _Dracula_, Renfield is a poor lunatic in Dr. Seward's sanitarium who eats small living animals, beginning with flies, then spiders and birds, and soon he asks for a kitten (which Seward will not provide him). As it turns out, his compulsion for eating living beings derives from his association with Count Dracula, whom he serves, and the resultant belief that he can extend his life by draining the life force of others, as a vampire does. Ultimately persuaded to betray Dracula to the forces led by van Helsing, he is killed as punishment.

Renfield's most memorable film portrayal was that by Dwight Frye in the 1931 version with Bela Lugosi. Here, he takes the role of Jonathan Harker as the real estate agent who sells Dracula the abbey in which he will dwell, visiting his castle in Transylvania, and becoming Dracula's first English victim. Frye's bug-eyed stare and unnerving insane laughter won him a place in film history - but it also typecast him as a lunatic for the rest of his career.

Renfield then took a considerable break from appearing in Dracula films - almost forty years. He neither appeared in the later Universal pictures with Dracula (which makes sense, as he dies at the end of the first one) nor in any of the Hammer versions. In the 1970s, however, he began his comeback. Now cast sometimes as Harker's boss before going mad, a variety of actors have hammed it up and devoured insects in the role, sometimes (as in "Love at First Bite" and "Dracula: Dead and Loving It" to comic effect). Renfield is now one of the most beloved characters from the novel, along with van Helsing, and new versions of the tale include him in response to audience demand. Oddly enough, there is also a card game called "Renfield," which is based on the idea of eating insects.