a bit about Sardonicus

A little something from the Sardonicus book:

In the Big Book of Horror Movie History, he’s one of the great “Horatio Alger figures”: Marek Toleslawski. A Central European peasant, born with bleak prospects in Gorslava, circa 1830. On the one-year anniversary of the death of his mother Maria, his father Henryk died, and Marek inherited the family farm. He worked hard, but every time he sold his produce in the city, all moneys went toward the purchase of more feed and seed grain. This led to quarrels between Marek and his wife Elenka, who wanted more from life than the meager existence Marek could eke out for them.

When the gods at last smiled upon Marek, it was a cruel “skeleton smile”: He suddenly came into wealth, and bought himself the title of baron.

And, legend has it, he became one of Gorslava’s most feared men — with a new face more dreadful than his deeds.

This rags-to-wretched tale is, of course, fiction, the plot of a movie. But the story of the origin of the character of Marek, aka Mr . Sardonicus, is also interesting. He was born in the Chicago office of the young executive editor of Playboy magazine.