Bela Lugosi, a major film star of the early Hollywood horror genre and the most famous Dracula in the history of world cinema, was born on 20. October 1882..in the small town of Lugos, located east of Timisoara in Romania , then in Austro Hungarian Empire .
At his baptism he was given the name Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó .
Bella’s mother Paula was a girl from the famous and branched noble family Voenich in Subotica.. Bella’s father Istvan Blasko, was a former bakery owner and then manager of a local savings bank in Lugos,
The youngest of four children, Bela left school after the sixth grade (1894), after his father’s death, for some time he worked in the mines and other difficult jobs.
Acting Career
His first theatre performance was in 1901. in the Subotica theatre, when he performed in the choir of an operetta.
That summer he also played minor roles on the Kaloca summer Stage.
Thanks to Lajos Ihas, the manager of the Subotica theatre, he got a role in the show “Eagles” (by Some Guti and Viktor Rakoszi) which was played in Subotica,
Young Bela, in 1901 ,as a beginner, impressed the audience with his manners, stage appearance and posture, so he soon became a favorite of the Subotica ladies.
In the theater there, he achieved several more roles, among others Cyrano de Bergerac, and he also starred in the play Wine” by Géza Gardonji.
It was in 1903. when he took the artistic surname Lugosi, after his birthplace.
In 1904. he acted in the Timisoara theatre, after which he was a member of the traveling theatre of the southern regions performing on the stages of Sombor and Veliki Beckerek.
In Debrecine, at the theatre there, he worked from 1908.. and in a short time he had 45 different roles, with some distinguishing himself in 1909. like William Tell in the play of the same name.
In 1910.. he became an actor of the National Theatre in Szeged, but already in 1911. he moved to Budapest, where he performed prominently in the Hungarian theatre as Count Vronsky in the play “Anna Karenina” based on novel by Leo Tolstoy .
He then acted in the Royal Theatre, then in the Court Theatre, and in 1913. g. he became a member of the prestigious National Theatre in Budapest, where he performed in a number of roles, although they were often minor .
During the First World War he volunteered for the Austro-Hungarian army, in which he was decorated for bravery and made a second lieutenant, but after being wounded on the Eastern Front, in 1915. returned to the National Theatre in Budapest.
Early films
Since 1917, he most often acted under the stage name Aristid Olt and began to appear in films of the emerging Hungarian cinema.
In a short time he shot more than ten films in Hungary.
After World War I Lugosi became an enthusiastic supporter and agitator of the Hungarian Soviet republic, during the Communist Revolution of Bela Kun in 1919.
With the defeat of the revolution, he was banned from acting in Hungary, so he had to emigrate to Austria, and then to Germany, where in 1919-20. he continued to shoot and acted in about fifteen films (besides the others, also in the films “Hypnosis“, “Caravan of death” and ” Janus ‘head” ).
America
Lugosi left Germany in October 1920. and, although not knowing a word of English, he headed by ship to the United States, where he arrived in New Orleans at the end of the same year.
At the beginning of the following year he went to New York and there, with other Hungarian actors who had emigrated to the US, he founded a small traveling theater, which gave plays in the eastern United States.
His first English-language role was in the Broadway play “Red poppy” in 1922. The following year, he made his American film debut in the melodrama “The Silent Command.”
In the summer of 1927. the striking Bela Lugosi, with his Hungarian accent, perfectly plays the title role in the Broadway play “Dracula“, based on the novel by Bram Stoker.
The show received acclaim from audiences and critics, and in New York, before the American tour, it was successfully screened as many as 261 times.
After an American tour he decided in 1928. to stay in Hollywood, where in 1929. he’s making the movie “The Masked woman”.
Finally, Lugosi In 1931. gets the lead role in the film “Dracula“, directed by Todd Browning, which will bring him international film fame and status as a “horror icon”.
Bela Lugosi & Helen Chandler in movie Dracula ( 1931 )
The film was sound and produced by Universal Pictures.
Lugosi stars in the film with Edward van Sloane, Helen Chandler, David Meners, and Dwight Fray. The movie was a success in every way, both artistic and commercial. His black slicked back hair and thick Hungarian accent become his “trademark “
However, the success of “Dracula” limited Bela Lugosi’s acting career to horror villain roles, and in the following years he played almost exclusively such roles, in “Murders in the Rue Morgue” ***(1932), “the White Zombie” (1932), “island of Lost Souls” (1932), “The Black Cat*** (1934), “The Raven“** and “The Sign of the Vampire” (1935), “The Invisible Ray” (1936), “Son Of Frankenstein” (1939), “Black Friday” (1940), etc. (*** based on storys from Edgar Allan Poe )
Also he played in the romantic comedy “Ninocska“, in 1939. with Greta Garbo.
In the following years Lugosi starred in the horror-films “The Spirit of Frankenstein” (1942), “Frankenstein meets the werewolf” (1943), “Return of the Vampire” (1943), and ” the bloody kidnapper” (1945), and played Dracula again in “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (1948).
Dracula movie poster 1931 .has sold for $535,800, making it the most valuable movie poster sold at auction in the world.
Career decline
Bela Lugosi, a former seductive artist of Subotica, Sombor, Timisoara, Debrecen, Szeged and Budapest stages, who become planetary famous in the role of a prominent bloodthirsty, back-up Transylvanian count, was, in the middle of the 20th century, on the threshold of old age, somewhat forgotten and impoverished, but with obscure behavior and, unfortunately, increasingly addicted to narcotics (morphine).
He spent part of 1955 in treatment for addiction at the State Hospital in Norwalk, California.
The end of his artistic career was marked by low-budget and low-end films, such as “Bella Lugosi Meets the Brooklyn Gorilla” (1952), and his collaboration with Ed Wood, considered the worst and most incompetent director in film history.
Bela Lugosi appears in his naïve achievements which were strikingly bad, to the point of having cult status today.
The last appearance of Bela Lugosi was recorded in 1956..in Wood’s film “Plan 9 from outer space“
Bela Lugosi died at the age of 74. year of life, 16. in August 1956, at his home in Los Angeles, he was buried in the cloak he wore as Dracula.
He made 107 films during his lifetime, nearly a third of them in the silent era.
Although many of his films, especially later ones, belonged to B-productions, Bela Lugosi’s name has remained in film history through his role as the first and most famous Dracula.
Legacy
Over time, Lugosi, after his death, increasingly gained cult status, to which, certainly, the famous composition “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”, By The Rock Group “Bauhaus“, released as the first single of this band, in the summer of 1979, contributed.
It has had a notable influence on popular culture, and Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula established the character as a cultural icon, as well as the archetypal vampire in later works of fiction. In 2000, the film was selected by the United States Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry as “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”
Today, Bela Lugosi, a former Hungarian actor, has numerous admirers around the world, who consider him one of the most recognizable characters in the history of World Cinema.
Trivia
· Lugosi helped organize the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-1930s, joining as member number 28.
· His performance in Tod Browning’s Dracula (1931) created such a sensation that he reportedly received more fan mail from females than even Clark Gable.
· His Los Angeles home was purchased by Johnny Depp, who played his friend Edward D. Wood Jr. in Ed Wood (1994).
· At the time of his death, Lugosi was in such poor financial straits that Frank Sinatra was rumored to have paid for his funeral.Actually, his widow Hope and ex-wife Lillian paid it; Sinatra’s only connection to the aging actor was sending him a $1000 check during his drug rehabilitation.
· The rumor that Boris Karloff attended the funeral was also an urban myth, as he wasn’t in California at the time.
· Bela did not wear fangs when playing the title character in Dracula (1931).
· Also he had an extensive classical career in Austro – Hungary including roles in “Hamlet“, “Macbeth“, “King Lear“, “Taming of the Shrew” and “Richard III“. all plays written by William Shakespeare .
· He became a US citizen in 1931, the same year he starred in Dracula (1931), whereas fellow horror actor, Boris Karloff lived in the US for 45 years yet never sought American citizenship.
· Contrary to popular belief, he only played Count Dracula in two films: Dracula (1931) and Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
· He played vampires in many other films, but none of them–besides the aforementioned two–were Count Dracula.
· As heard in White Zombie (1932), Bela Lugosi pronounced French flawlessly, like a French native and, curiously enough, without a trace of his trademark Hungarian accent. It is unclear whether he was fluent in the language. The reason why is unclear, considering that he dropped out of school when he was 12 years old and is not known to have lived in France.
· It is equally unclear whether he also spoke any German (he lived and acted in movies in Germany for a few years).
· Long before Dracula (1931), shots of his hypnotic eyes in extreme close-up were often used in his films, including Hypnose (1920), The Silent Command (1923) and, later, more famously in White Zombie (1932).
· Even when not acting, he was able to project an aura of curiosity and intrigue. According to colleagues, he could command the attention of a whole group of strangers as soon as he entered the same room.
· Was President of the Hungarian Council for Democracy, in which many leading Americans of Hungarian descent were active.
· White Zombie (1932) was a personal favorite of his films, for which he stepped in and did some of the directing, according to his son, Bela Lugosi Jr..
· Appeared with Boris Karloff in eight films: The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1935), Son of Frankenstein (1939), You’ll Find Out (1940), Black Friday (1940) The Body Snatcher (1945) and Gift of Gab (1934).
· Posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6430 Hollywood Blvd. on 2/8/1960.
· As of 1995 his son, Bela Lugosi Jr., practices law in Los Angeles, CA
· An original poster for the 1931 adaptation of Dracula sold in 2017. at Heritage Auctions’ Movie Posters Auction in Dallas, Texas for $525,800, making it the new world record holder for most expensive movie poster ever sold. Only two prints of this poster are known to exist.
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