Professor Abraham van Helsing, the famous vampire-hunter

The name Van Helsing stands for the vampire-hunter in a word.
The character was created by Bram Stoker as the counterpart of Count Dracula. Stoker gave him the name of his father -Abraham- and created this main-character after the example of the hungarian orientalist Arminius Vambery (1832-1913).
Vambery gave Stoker material about the historian Vlad Tepes, who became the example for Count Dracula.
In the novel "Dracula", Vambery is mentioned as a colleague by Van Helsing.
Prof. Van Helsing from Amsterdam, specialist for obscure diseases, an intellectual, progressive scientist who uses religious symbols to defeat his unusual enemy.

The progressive Van Helsing uses a dictaphone
instead of a notebook to fix his scientific results.

The Professor follows the request of the psychatrist Dr. Seward and travells from Amsterdam to London, where he begins the fight againts his arch-enemy. Dracula escapes back into his homeland Transylvania followed by Van Helsing and his helpers. At the end Dracula is killed by this group with daggers.
The first movie Van Helsing was Edward Van Sloan (1882-1964) at the side of Bela Lugosi in "Dracula" (1930) and six years later in "Dracula`s Daughter" (1936).
But the actor who created our picture of Van Helsing like no one else before and after him is of course Peter Cushing.
Cushing played the role of Van Helsing fivetimes: "Dracula" (1958), "Brides of Dracula" (1960), "Dracula A.D.1972" (1972), "Satanic Rites of Dracula" (1973) and "Legend of the Golden Vampires" (1974).
His Van Helsing is always heroic, ascetic and passionate. He defeats his enemy not only with his intellect and his courage but also with an enormous physical effort.

Abraham in action, killing Dracula in "Dracula A.D.1972"

He struggels with his enemy in hand-to-hand-combat, he jumps onto curtains to let the sun burn down the evil count, he jumps onto the wings of a windmill to let the shadow form a cross, he burns out the vampire-bit on his throat with an hot iron to prevent his alteration into a vampire.

"Brides of Dracula" (1960)

After Peter Cushing the role of Van Helsing was played by Sir Laurence Olivier in Universal`s "Dracula" (1978) and by Anthony Hopkins in Coppola`s "Bram Stoker`s Dracula" (1992).
But when I think of Van Helsing, I have always a picture of Peter Cushing in my mind.