| Marya Zaleska | |
|---|---|
| Dracula character | |
 A shot of Countess Zaleska from the trailer of Dracula's Daughter | |
| First appearance | Dracula's Daughter |
| Last appearance | The Devil's Night by David Jacobs |
| Based on | Carmilla |
| Portrayed by | Gloria Holden Elina Löwensohn |
| In-universe information | |
| Nicknames | Dracula's Daughter |
| Gender | Female |
| Occupation | Countess and socialite |
| Family | Count Dracula (father) (deceased) unnamed mother (deceased) Count Anthony Alucard/Dracula (brother) |
| Nationality | Hungarian |
| Status | Deceased (original film and novels) Alive (alternative remake) |
Marya Zaleska is a fictional character who appears in the 1936 Universal horror film Dracula's Daughter where she is played by Gloria Holden. An alternative version of the character reappeared in the 1994 remake Nadja played by Elina Löwensohn.
Overview
editMarya Zaleska or Dracula's Daughter as she calls herself, was born in Dracula's Castle 100 years ago in the village of Transylvania, Hungary to Count Dracula and one of his vampire brides probably. During those 100 years, Zaleska lived in his castle before going to London, England sometime during the early 1930s.
Dracula's Daughter (1936)
editAfter Dracula's defeat and death at the hands of Abraham Van Helsing in 1931, Zaleska arrives at the morgue to take and burn Dracula's body so that she might be cured of her vampirism. After knocking the policeman in the morgue, Zaleska takes Dracula's dead corpse and burns it at the swamp nearby the morgue.
However, she is still revealed to be a vampire which causes her to then find a doctor who knows all about the supernatural and vampires and can cure her. During this time, Marya also starts doing activities that she says "human beings do", such as playing the piano and talking about positive things to further herself from her vampiric cravings, even though they are brought back to her by her henchman and assistant Sandor.
One night, Marya attends a party at socialite Lady Esme Hammond's house and over there, meets Jeffrey Garth, a doctor and former student of Van Helsing who knows about vampires but doesn't think they're real. Marya falls in love with Jeffrey and tells him to cure her, inviting him to her headquarters were the 2 along with Sandor, talk about Marya's sickness with the latter about to tell Jeffrey about her vampirism before the conversation is interrupted by Jeffrey's secretary Janet Blake prank calling him on the house telephone, which causes him to leave the meeting and end it abruptly.
Soon, dead and injured people show up in London everywhere, including a man who Zaleska hypnotizes and kills and a model named Lili, who Sandor picks up for Zaleska and who Zaleska says she is going to make a portrait out of, however, her cravings return and instead of making the painting, she bites Lili, injuring but not killing her.
Lili is then found by the local police and taken to the hospital were Dr. Garth attends to her. Marya, realizing that her immortality and vampirism cannot be cured, decides to make Jeffrey immortal along with her, so they could live a happy life as vampires. She starts her plan by kidnapping Janet Blake and flying away to Transylvania with Sandor so that they could kill Janet and lure Jeffrey there, only to have Marya then turn him into an immortal vampire.
Jeffrey, meanwhile finds out from the still-alive Lili that Marya Zaleska is a vampire and the one who bit her before the latter (Lili) dies. Hearing this news and that Zaleska kidnapped Janet, Jeffrey goes on the flight to Transylvania to kill Zaleska and Sandor. Meanwhile in Transylvania, it is revealed that Marya promised to make Sandor immortal after their trip to London, however Zaleska dismisses Sandor's complaints and says that she is going to make Garth immortal, not him, which causes the latter (Sandor) to slowly start betraying her and try to kill Jeffrey when he arrives at the castle. The final confrontation begins as Marya reveals to Jeffrey that she is Dracula's Daughter and that she wants to make him immortal along with her, now that she cannot cure her vampirism and that she will also kill Janet because she found out that the latter (Janet) has feelings for Jeffrey. However, before Zaleska could do anything, Sandor shoots her with an arrow from his crossbow for not granting him immortality like she had promised, killing her.
Later, after Van Helsing and the whole of Scotland Yard shoot and kill Sandor and rescue Jeffrey and Janet, they closely look at Zaleska's dead body in the sunlight, with Scotland Yard inspector Basil Humphreys commenting on how beautiful she looks along with Van Helsing then telling him that she was beautiful 100 years ago when she was a little bit more mortal and was aging like a human being as the dead body of Dracula's Daughter slowly starts turning to ash because of the sunlight burning it.
