11. Nosfearatu star Max Schreck really was a vampire

Yes, this is the premise of the 2000 film Shadow of the Vampire, a fictionalised retelling of the making of Nosferatu - but the movie is also playing off a real-life rumour. Some of the confusion seems to have risen in the 1950s, when the Greek film writer and director Ado Kyrou speculated that, thanks to the heavy make-up used in the film, it really could have been anyone in the role. It has also been falsely claimed that Schreck was something of an obscure figure, never heard of before or after Nosferatu - although, in the internet age, a quick Google is enough to debunk this. Finally, the actor's suspiciously appropriate name may also have played a part in stoking the myth: Schreck, by strange coincidence, is the German word for "terror" or "fright".