The Dracula Connection

Hollywood tour guides once told tourists that the gloomy house looming above the Sunset Strip belonged to Bela Lugosi, star of “Dracula,” the 1931 hit horror film. In 1994, Johnny Depp starred in “Ed Wood,” a movie about Lugosi’s last film. Depp bought the castle a year later. MORE >>>

Death Is a Treat

The castle’s actual owner in the 1930s was Hersee Carson, widow of an inventor who struck it rich at age 55. George Carson was not the first of Hersee’s wealthy husbands who died. MORE >>>

The Fairy Lady

Hersee Carson’s signature charity was hosting a Christmas party for orphans, who called her home the “Fairy Lady’s Castle.” But her good works could not stave off bankruptcy and save the castle. MORE >>>

Chaos

Ex-burlesque dancer “Queen” Patricia Noblesse Hogan leased the castle in the early 1940s and converted it into a boarding house. All went well until she failed to pay her taxes. MORE >>>

Rock Dreams

Gary Kellgren, brilliant but now forgotten record producer for the Stones, Hendrix, Eagles and more, leased the castle with the dream of turning it into a resort-like studio complex. But fate had other plans. MORE >>>

‘Trust Me, You Won’t See Him’

The house was later owned by Hollywood eccentric Israel “Dan” Davis, leased by Noah Dietrich, Howard Hughes’ former right-hand man, and owned by famous palimony attorney Marvin Mitchelson. Johnny Depp has owned it since 1995, but fans who want a glimpse of him at the castle are wasting their time. MORE >>>