The Evolution of a Hero, Part One

Filed in: Life | Musings on Craft | Writing
Tags: Don Knight | Dracula | Frank Langella | heroes | Jonathan Harker | Trevor Eve

“Part One” because I suspect I’m going to get a little long-winded on this topic, which is one of my favorites. I’m also going to delve into a lot of my personal past as well as my writing habits, and I don’t want that part to get too tedious. Finally, I hope some of my writing friends will chime in here, as Marti and Jen did last time. (Jen, I’m going to answer your last question, but it’ll take a bit to get there.)

Do you believe that God is involved in every minute aspect of your life? Because of my faith, I don’t really believe in coincidences. I do believe He plants tiny seeds that take years to germinate. I do believe He puts mile markers in our passings to say, “Pay attention, this will come around again.”

I do believe He did everything He could to make me a writer. Among other gifts (and He’s showered me at times), He gave me an insatiable curiosity about people, a love of research and knowledge, a passion for a good story, and a whole series of teachers who turned me on to words, including one who gave a 12 year old rein to do her book reports about Shakespearean plays.

He also gave me a mother who tolerated a daughter papering the bedroom walls with photos of men. Lots of men.

My first celebrity crush was Robin, the Boy Wonder. (Don’t snicker; I was eight.) And not, mind you, the deliciously campy version as portrayed by Burt Ward on prime time TV. Nope, I went head over grammar school heels for the guy in the comic books that I pilfered from my brother’s closet. The stage was thus set for me to “bond” to a hero with some pretty classic traits: good looks, tragic past, strong morals and sense of honor and integrity, ready for action, intelligence, good looks . . .

You get the picture.

Also note that it was one of the few times that I went for the dark-haired one. I don’t know why, but I never totally understood the appeal of “tall, dark, and handsome.” My gaze almost always flitted to the not-as-tall blond in the picture. Possibly because I’m short and come from a family with a lot of blond men in it.

So while millions of women were sighing over Han Solo, I was moon-eyed over Luke. Robert Redford. (And to really show my age: David McCallum’s Illya Kuryakin.) But it didn’t have to be the lead in a movie or TV show. I went gaga over a whole series of character actors, such as Don Knight in The Immortal. Some of these gentlemen remained a mere shade on the screen back in the 60s, 70s, and early 80s because we didn’t have the Internet, just lots and lots of magazines. (I spent a lot of time in the archive section of my libraries . . . to say that I studied men would be a bit of an understatement . . . )

Then, in 1979, there came a film that was instrumental not only in the evolution of one of my 21st century heroes but a shift in the entire romance genre. It took more than a decade for tv and books to catch up, but there, in its little bat cave (again with the bats…), lay an image that would change the way we viewed vampires forever.

Look familiar?

BUT while women everywhere were dreaming of a sunset lover who could arrive in a mist and leave his women sated and breathless, my gaze wandered firmly toward Lucy’s erstwhile fiance and rescuer, the “not-exactly-blond-but…” Jonathan Harker . . .

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