The Legendary Case of Claus von Bulow and TV's 'Dark Shadows' Actress Alexandra Moltke

Photo bydatalounge.com

Actress Alexandra Molke found fame as the original Victoria Winters on the gotchic daytime drama, Dark Shadows, which originally aired on ABC from 1966 to 1971. Fourteen years later, she was embroiled in a real life mystery as Alexandra Isles. Moltke became the former mistress of the Danish-born socialite Claus von Bulow whose testimony at his first trial helped convict him of trying to kill his heiress wife. He was later acquitted of the crime, which gained widespread international attention in the 1980s.

A Closer Look

The imposing sophisticated Claus von Bulow was charged with putting Martha "Sunny" von Bulow into an irreversible coma to inherit her $14 million fortune so he could share his life with Alexandra Moltke.

In 1982, he was convicted of attempted murder at a trial in Newport, Rhode Island.

Isles, who was von Bulow's lover for 2 years, provided key testimony in the 1982 trial that jurors said helped convict him of administering insulin injections into Sunny to aggravate her hypoglycemia, or chronic low blood sugar.

Claus was later cleared of any wrongdoing, and moved to London, where he died in 2019 at 92.

The Big Picture

Today, the always elegant Alexandra Moltke lives a quite life, away from the spotlight. She remains beloved by countless fans of Dark Shadows, which was rebooted as a short-lived prime-time series for NBC (in early 1991). The franchise, created by the genius of Dan Curtis (who died in 2006), was then adapted for the bigscreen (in late 2012) starring Johnny Depp and directed by Tim Burton.