“Casting Shadows, as It Were”
In the past, I’ve posted on how “casting” characters as if they were played by (mostly) classic era actors in my earlier Jessica Minton mysteries helped me flesh out their characters. Now that Shadows of a Dark Past is out, I thought you might enjoy reading about the inspirations for the folks Jessica, Liz, and James encounter on the mysterious Birdsong Island. So, let’s begin!
When you’re writing a ghost story à la Val Lewton/Edgar Ulmer/ Joseph Lewis, it only makes sense that some of your characters be inspired by star players from those films. So, with whom to start? Why not the inspiration for the haunted scientist/widower of Shadows, Vitus Blasko?
Who is a prime prospect to play a man whose obsession with his work cost  him his wife and child many years ago? My choice was one of the premiere players of 1930s/40s horror, especially at Universal: Bela Lugosi. “What?!” you exclaim. “The guy who played those Machiavellian vampires in Dracula (1931) and Return of the Vampire (1945), as well a plethora of sinister scientists?” “You bet!” I reply. Lugosi also played the tortured and highly sympathetic Dr. Vitus Werdegast in 1934’s The Black Cat. Here, he’s a doctor who had been sent to a death camp at the end of WWI, costing him his wife and daughter, through the betrayal of Boris Karloff’s Hjalmar Poelzig. (Now those are  names!) His intellectual battles with Poelzig may  seem sinisterly to threaten a young married couple caught in the middle at Hjalmar’s Frank-Lloyd-Wright-on-LSD designed mansion. However, Werdegast’s grief over what he has lost and his protection of the couple reveal a sympathetic tenderness in Lugosi’s acting. In honor of the sensitivity of Lugosi’s performance, I opted to select Vitus for the first name of my haunted scientist from Lugosi’s character in The Black Cat and the last name from Lugosi’s actual family name.
Jamie Blasko: Jamie, Vitus and the ghostly Felicia’s daughter, has terribly  suffered through her mother’s murder (or abandonment?), a broken engagement, and living in a shadow-shrouded manse looking after a father broken by the mistakes of his past. With a cast member of The Wellstone Mystery Hour offering her the life saver of romance, Jamie has a chance for happiness. Dare she take it? The radio program will broadcast shows focusing on that most terrible time: the mystery of her mother’s disappearance. Can Jamie bear a revival of that scandal and pain? Will the program provide the answers she needs? Will she and her father be able to bear those answers?
 Soulful-eyed Gail Russell is the natural inspiration of my creation, Jamie Blasko. In such roles as the haunted daughter determined to embrace the ghostly touch of her mother in The Uninvited or the young woman struggling against the psychic prediction of her death at a fast approaching appointed hour in The Night Has a Thousand Eyes, Russell’s gentle demeanor threaded with flashes of piercing anguish embodies the spirit of the Blasko girl.
Gerry Davis: A WWII vet who lost a leg at Anzio, Gerry is a true radio trouper on The Wellstone Mystery Hour, not only playing most of their romantic leads but a host of other parts as the need arises. Handsome with wavy blondish  brown hair and a twinkle in his eye, Gerry’s kind heart and impish wit may be just the ticket to save Jaime Blasko from the darkness shadowing her life. However, Gerry must overcome the antipathy between Vitus Blasko and the Carlyle family sponsoring these broadcasts of a past tearing apart both families. For Gerry, I’ve turned to a more modern player for inspiration: Geraint Wyn Davies. The humor, passion, and intelligence Davies has brought to roles ranging from Shakespeare to the conscience-stricken vampire detective of Forever Knight makes him an ideal choice to inspire Gerry’s good nature and passion to protect Jamie Blasko.
If you haven’t already, check out my blogs on casting characters in the first three novels of the Jessica Minton Mysteries
Image Credits
Bela Lugosi images screen shots from The Black Cat (1934), © Universal Pictures.
First Gail Russell Image: Screen Shot from The Uninvited (1944) © Paramount Pictures.
Second Gail Russell Image Public Domain from Wikkipedia: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gail_Russell_postcard_photo_circa_1950s.jpg
Geraint Wynn Davies image a portion of Lady Vamp’s Forever Knight Site, http://www.foreverknight.org/LadyVampKnight1228/home.html
If any violation of copyright has been inadvertently committed by my posting or re-posting these images, let me know and I will remove them.
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Sharon Healy-Yang 
