Bela lugosi

Bela Lugosi’s real name was Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó. He was born on October 20, 1882 in Lugoj, a town in the region where Count Dracula also came from, Transylvania, at that time part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, although it would later become part of Romania. He was the youngest of the four children of a Catholic banker, quite well off. Unfortunately, this one died when the boy was 12 years old, so he had to earn a living on his own very early, as a miner.

After attending the Budapest Theater Academy, he dedicated himself to theater performance in his country from a very young age, using Arisztid Olt as his stage name. He made his film debut with Násdal , followed by various titles and took part in many plays by Shakespeare and other authors, almost always as a leading man, although he had to interrupt his acting career because of the Great War. He became a lieutenant in the infantry.

When the conflict ended, he became a left-wing political activist, and founded an actors union. Married to Ilona Szmik, he finally decided to part with her. The truth is that Lugosi, who had a reputation as a womanizer, was unfaithful.

Due to his political militancy, the authorities found him uncomfortable, so he finally had to go into exile, first in Germany, where he made several feature films. The teacher FW Murnau was the one who gave him his first role in the horror genre, in the tape Jano’s Head , an unconfessed revision of “The strange case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”, which to avoid complaints changed the names of the characters, as the director did later with his famousNosferatu .

With the rise of Nazism, the actor finally moved to the United States, despite the fact that he barely spoke English at first, while his accent left no doubt about his origins. Despite everything, he managed to make his Hollywood debut with The Silent Command , from 1923. He decided to adopt “Lugosi” as his stage name, in homage to his hometown.

He married the millionaire Beatrice Woodruf Week, but she left him immediately, when she found out about his affair with Clara Bow , one of the silent film stars. Although MGM offered him a contract, they only gave him very minor roles that Lugosi found very little enriching.

Determined to try his hand at the stage, Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston , authors of the stage version of “Dracula,” were impressed by his acting skills and an accent that was ideal for the central character. They hired him and the Hungarian began a long tour of the United States, obtaining unprecedented success.

The vampire made so much noise that soon Carl Laemmle, founder of Universal, decided that he would take the story to the screen. He didn’t want Lugosi, but a movie star, for the lead role. He proposed to Lon Chaney , but he was already very ill, and before he died, he recommended that Laemmle choose Lugosi. Still, the production company first offered it to Conrad Veidt , who turned the role down.

It was Lugosi himself who strove to repeat on screen the character that had given him so much glory on stage. Thanks to his natural charm, he practically managed to seduce Florence Stoker, widow of the original book’s author, into giving up the rights at a low price. In addition, his salary was also going to be moderate so he finally got cast as the lead.Tod Browning ‘s Dracula (1931) was so widely accepted that Laemmle decided to start a series of adaptations of famous horror characters. He offered her the role of monster in the next one,Dr. Frankenstein , to Bela Lugosi, but he did not agree because he thought he was going to wear too much makeup, so his numerous female admirers would not recognize him. He obviously regretted it when the film, with Boris Karloff , swept the box office.

Turned into the king of terror, Lugosi starred in titles such asThe Island of Lost Souls , based on a novel by HG Wells , and would form a tandem with Karloff, the other great figure of the genre, inSatan (1934) ,The Raven (1935) , The Invisible Ray ,The son of Frankenstein , Black Friday and The Body Snatcher . He obtained American nationality, but also earned a reputation as a conflicted actor, who argued with the director of each film on technical aspects. In addition, he took it very badly that Sydney Fox appeared credited before him on the tapeThe double murder of the Rue Morgue , because it had less screen presence, which led to a huge discussion with Universal executives.

Thus, Lugosi moved on to independent cinema films withLegion of Soulless Men , considered the first zombie film. Around that time he married Lillian Arch, with whom he had his only child, Béla G. Lugosi.

Although he tried to escape from typecasting, and wanted to play heroes on screen and explore other genres, they only offered him titles likeThe Vampire’s Mark orThe werewolf (1941) , where he plays a very secondary character, the gypsy Bela. He managed to get out of terror momentarily when the teacher Ernst Lubitsch hired him to play an unscrupulous Soviet in his masterful comedyNinotchka .

But his glory days had passed, and he had serious financial problems. He agreed to play Frankenstein’s monster, the role he had turned down, inFrankenstein and the Wolf Man , but was struck down by criticism. He even returned to play his most remembered character, Dracula, in the comedyAbbott and Costello vs. the Ghosts . And sign on for the gruesome humor by-products Mother Riley Meets the Vampire and Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla . Abandoned by his wife, he becomes famous as an eccentric, and it is said that he sleeps in a coffin, like the character who made him famous.

At the time when he had hit rock bottom, he was shooting videos to teach mathematics to schoolchildren. At that time, he went to his house to look for the director Edward D. Wood Jr. , a passionate follower of Lugosi, who wanted to return him to the top. The worst director in the history of cinema did not succeed, as seen in the cult filmEd Wood , by Tim Burton . But he restored the illusion to the actor after turning him into a narrator ofI changed my sex , give him the leading role ofThe Monster’s Bride , and hire him toPlan 9 from outer space (Plan 9 from Outer Space) . However, he only filmed one sequence of the latter, since he suffered a heart attack, which ended his life, on August 16, 1956.

Buried with Dracula’s cloak, recalling his glory days, it is said that few people attended his funeral, but it was Boris Karloff, his eternal rival, who gave him some very laudatory words.