SIR GRAVES GHASTLY – Lawson J. Deming portrayed this vampire character whose eponymous movie show ran from January 1967 to November 1982 in Detroit – a longer run than most other classic Movie Hosts. His Saturday afternoon at 1:00pm program was even syndicated in Cleveland and Washington, DC for a year or two during the 1970s.
(NOTE: Some sources claim that Lawson Deming hosted the syndicated shows as Count Alu Card.)
The backstory that Deming created for his tongue-in-cheek vampire was that he was over 400 years old and was originally Gravarious Ghastliano from Italy. After moving to England he met William Shakespeare and acted in his plays. One of Demings’ most frequent lines held that Queen Elizabeth had Sir Graves Ghastly hanged “but like a bad vaccination, it didn’t take.”
At the start of each episode Sir Graves would emerge from a coffin and make with his signature laugh – “”Nyeeea-aaaa-haa-haaaaa.” At show’s end he would climb back into the coffin and pull down the lid.
In between came old horror and sci-fi movies from classic Universal hits to So-Bad-They’re-Good bombs like Robot Monster, Revenge of the Creature, The Crawling Hand and others. Deming also portrayed a variety of supporting characters on Sir Graves Ghastly. Continue reading
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