Yes, Jeanne Keyes Youngson is quick to bare her teeth in a wide smile. Yes, she displays a sharp ... wit. But Youngson, founder and president of The Count Dracula Fan Club, is more likely to go for your funny bone than your neck.
''We've been undead and well for 35 years,'' she says about her group, the world's oldest active vampire society. How does she stay so energetic through the years? ''It's all that blood that I drink,'' she confides.
Her interest in all things vampire is quite serious, though. Enter her Manhattan apartment, and there's a corkboard covered with vintage Dracula movie stills: Klaus Kinski, Christopher Lee, Bela Lugosi. Look to your left, and a small crucifix hangs on the wall ''It's not because I'm Catholic,'' she says with a smile.
The bookshelves overflow with vampire tomes: ''Lust for Blood,'' ''Reflections on Dracula,'' ''The Complete Book of the Devils' Disciples.'' Assorted rubber bats hang from a hook outside her kitchen.
She and her collection reside in a Greenwich Village building where Eleanor Roosevelt's ghost is rumored to roam. Youngson knows that story, but the late first lady doesn't capture her imagination the way ol' Dracula does.
It was on a 1965 tour of Romania that the Dracula bug first bit her. Riding on a tour bus, she heard the guide spin tales of the murderous Vlad the Impaler one of Bram Stoker's inspirations for ''Dracula.''
''That lightning bolt hit me there on that bus,'' she recalls. ''I remember that moment that it suddenly came to me: I should start a Dracula society.''
Upon her return to Manhattan, she did. The society soon took off. Today, it boasts 2,500 members from 27 countries. The members are incredibly loyal; the renewal rate for 1999 was 97 percent. While the club was once free, the annual dues are now $50 to cover printing and postage.
Why does Dracula, a character created a century ago by Stoker, still command such devotion? ''He's very mysterious, and he's very sexy,'' Youngson explains. ''Especially since the Hollywood scriptwriters got a hold of him.''
Youngson cranks out a monthly newsletter, in which members swap stories and offer tips on where to find new Draculabilia. One of the most popular recent topics: Dracula 2000, a gathering of Dracula fans set for next May in Romania.
Youngson, as expected, is a fountain of Dracula trivia.
Were you aware that Dracula had a sweet tooth? Youngson sells ''Count Dracula's Favorite Christmas Cookie Recipes,'' a collection that relies more on chocolate than corpuscles.
Interested in becoming a vampire? There's a six-step process involving raw chicken liver, an owl figurine, 12 grains of white rice and a single black human hair.
For the Japanese vampire buff, there is actually a collection called ''Vampire Haiku.''
Youngson's work has attracted some strange attention but none stranger than the letter she received from one Danny D., a Death Row inmate. He was looking for tips on becoming a vampire, assuring himself immortality in the aftermath of state-sponsored execution.
The Dracula Fan Club
NEW YORK (AP) Relax. She doesn't bite.
[Source: The Boston Globe / MA / By Larry Mcshane - August 10 1999]
