Though at first he was treated with benign pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. The film is lost today, but a March 16, 1959, critical review in the Kinematograph Weekly mentioned that the movie contained new Lugosi footage (intriguing since Lugosi had died in 1956). He declared his intention to become a US citizen in 1928; on June 26, 1931, he was naturalized. Veteran Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi, 73, best known for his many Dracula screen roles, died late yesterday in his apartment at 5620 Harold Way, apparently the victim of a heart attack. It ran for three years, and was subsequently, and memorably, filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing Lugosi as one of the screen's greatest personifications of pure evil. You've got your Bette Davises vs. your Joan Crawfords, your Sarah Jessica Parkers vs. your Kim Cattralls, your Marlon Brandos vs. your Frank Sinatras. During post-production of the latter, Lugosi decided to seek treatment for his drug addiction, and the film's premiere was arranged to raise money for Lugosi's hospital expenses (resulting in a paltry amount of money). "I owe it all to that little man at the Regina Theatre," said Lugosi of exhibitor Umann. However Bela and Hope were actually discussing getting divorced around the time he passed away. Hal B. Wallis, Martin and Lewis's producer, unsuccessfully sued Broder. It turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. In 1921, he married Ilona von Montagh, and divorced in 1924. For the remainder of his life, he appeared less and less frequently in obscure, forgettable, low-budget B features. Lugosi was intoxicated and very ill during the film's promotional campaign and had to return to L.A. earlier than planned. Instead, he was relegated to the horror genre, written off as a B-movie hack. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover). Bela Lugosi Jr. attended the Elsinore Naval & Military School in Lake Elsinore. Bela Lugosi (born October 20, 1882) is famous for being movie actor. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film, contrary to popular--but unfounded--rumors. According to Lost Magazine, by the time of his death of a heart attack at 73, Lugosi had played the count 1,300 times, both on stage and on screen. On 26 June 1931, Lugosi became a naturalized United States citizen. We hope you enjoy it! The divorce became final on July 17, 1920 and was uncontested as Lugosi could not show up for the proceedings. Play episode. That honor went to Lon Cheney. became famous? In some ways, this visit would echo the year his son, Bela Lugosi Jr., was born. ? He acted in several films in Weimar Germany, before arriving in New Orleans as a seaman on a merchant ship, then making his way north to New York City and Ellis Island. In 1921, he met and married his second wife, Ilona von Montagh, a young Hungarian emigree and stage actress whom he had worked with years before in Europe. He had to suddenly emigrate to Germany after the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919 because of his former socialist activities (organizing a stage actors' union), leaving his first wife in the process. Bela George Lugosi (born January 5, 1938) is an American attorney and the son of actor Bla Lugosi. In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll and Mark McDonnell. Bela Lugosi grew up in a solidly middle class family in Hungary, the son of a baker-turned-banker. . Bela Lugosi is American by birth. According to SyFy Wire,he learned the language bit by bit, role by role, reading his lines out loud to himself. He was the youngest of four children. He dropped out of school when he was twelve years old, and began appearing in Shakespeare plays. Born: October 20, 1882 in Lugos, Hungary. [1] The rumor that Lugosi was clutching the script for The Final Curtain, a planned Ed Wood project, at the time of his death is not true. Gone were Lugosi's middle class parents, his teenage struggles to make ends meet in the mines and rail yards of turn-of-the-century Hungary. It was a wrenching move for the rising star, who, 16 years earlier, had changed his surname from Blask to Lugosi in homage to Lugos, the city of his birth. Wounded twice in the fighting, Lugosi received a medal for his faithful service. He also accepted the lead in an experimental, economical feature, shot in the semi-professional 16mm film format and blown up to 35mm for theatrical release, Scared to Death (produced in 1944 but not released until 1947). Then there was the fact that Universal Studios didn't pay him a living wage for the seven weeks he spent pouring his heart and soul into his portrayal of the bloodsucking count from Transylvania. He took the name "Lugosi" in 1903 to honor his birthplace, and eventually travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana as a crewman aboard a merchant ship. The story features Lugosi and John Carradine in a mad tale of love, suspicion, and rabies in the jungle. He began his stage acting career in 1902. Due to his activism in the actors' union in Hungary during the revolution of 1919 and his active participation in the Hungarian Soviet Republic,[11] he was forced to flee his homeland when the government changed hands, initially accompanied by his first wife Ilona Szmik. His net worth is estimated at about $5 million. He died a year into their marriage of a heart attack. Exiled in Weimar-era Germany, he began appearing in a small number of well-received films, among them adaptations of the Karl May novels On the Brink of Paradise (Auf den Trmmern des Paradieses, 1920) and Caravan of Death (Die Todeskarawane, also 1920) with Dora Gerson (Gerson, who was Jewish, died in Auschwitz). "I was dead, and he brought me back to life." Much like that of the vampire he brought to life, Lugosi's story is a fascinating one, full of ups and downs and twists of fate. He was eventually invited to join the National Theater of Budapest. You get the point. p. 203. Lots of famous people were born over the years on Oct. 20. In 2019 the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced acquisition of the cape via partial donation from the Lugosi family and that the cape will be on display in 2020. [29][38], The Vincent Price film, House of Wax premiered in Los Angeles at the Paramount Theatre on April 16, 1953. ), On June 26, 1931, Lugosi became a naturalized United States citizen. As per our current Database, Bela Lugosi died on Aug 16, 1956 (age 73). [25], Despite his critically acclaimed performance on stage, Lugosi was not Universal Pictures' first choice for the role of Dracula when the company optioned the rights to the Deane play and began production in 1930. Following his return to the United States, he was interviewed for television, and reflected wistfully on his typecasting in horror parts: "Now I am the boogie man". When appearing in Hungarian silent films, he used the stage name Arisztid Olt. Bela Lugosi's film career was all but dead when the B-movie (D-movie?) ", "Bela Lugosi is Dracula Again in New Comic Arriving This October", https://www.retroagogo.com/categories/collections/bela-lugosi/, Saturn Award for Best DVD or Blu-ray Collection, Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bela_Lugosi&oldid=1152475029, Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I, Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, Naturalized citizens of the United States, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2015, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from October 2022, Articles needing additional references from August 2020, All articles needing additional references, Articles containing Hungarian-language text, Articles with Hungarian-language sources (hu), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 30 April 2023, at 13:16. He co-starred in a number of films with Boris Karloff, who was able to demand top billing. The rumor originated from the discovery of a publicity still from this film found posthumously in Lugosi's scrapbook, which showed an unidentified clown in heavy makeup standing near Lon Chaney in one scene. In the same interview he expressed a desire to play more comedy, as he had in the Mother Riley farce. He was 48-years-old when he got the part in the iconic film, and he was already many years into his acting career. His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934's The Black Cat and 1935's The Raven. Lillian and Bela, as well as his mother, vacationed on their lake property in Lake Elsinore, California (then called Elsinore), on two lots between 1944 and 1953. Bela Lugosi Death: and Cause of Death. In 1979, the Lugosi v. Universal Pictures decision by the California Supreme Court held that Lugosi's personality rights could not pass to his heirs, as a copyright would have. His accent, while a part of his image, limited the type of role he could play. Lugosi was approached in the summer of 1927 to star in a Broadway theatre production of Dracula, which had been adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston from Bram Stoker's 1897 novel. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film . pg. In 1951, while in England to play a six-month tour of Dracula, Lugosi co-starred in a lowbrow film comedy, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (also known as Vampire over London and My Son, the Vampire), released the following year. According to the biography, The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi, Lugosi's father, Itsvan, was a prosperous man who left the baking profession in 1883 to set up, with the help of a few partners, a small savings bank in the town of Lugos. His first American film role was in the melodrama The Silent Command (1923). . He also appeared in the film Prisoners (also 1929), believed lost, which was released in both a silent and partial talkie version. Bela had four grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover). Although Lugosi would later claim that he "became the leading actor of Hungary's Royal National Theatre", many of his roles there were small or supporting parts, which led him to enter the Hungarian film industry.[10]. Lillian and Bela vacationed on their lakeshore property in Lake Elsinore, California (then called Elsinore), on several lots between 1944 and 1953. In Celebrities Gabrielle Miller Wiki: Wedding, Salary, Nationality, Parents. At the age of 12, Lugosi dropped out of school. [3], Lugosi, the youngest of four children,[4] was born Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask in 1882 in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania) to Hungarian father Istvn Blask, a baker who later became a banker,[5] and Serbian-born mother Paula de Vojnich. The rumor that Lugosi was clutching the script for The Final Curtain, a planned Ed Wood project, at the time of his death is not true. His performance had piqued the interest of Fox Film, and he was cast in the Hollywood studio's silent film The Veiled Woman (1929). [78], In 2013 the Hungarian electronic music band agar recorded a song entitled "Mr. Lugosi", which contains a recording of the voice of Bela Lugosi. Lugosi complained of her excessive drinking and dancing with other men at social gatherings. After almost breaking up their marriage in 1944, Lillian and Bela finally divorced on July 17, 1953,[52] at least partially because of Bela's excessive drinking[2] and his jealousy over Lillian taking a full-time job as an assistant to actor Brian Donlevy on Donlevy's radio and television series Dangerous Assignment. To his frustration, Lugosi, a charter member of the American Screen Actors Guild, was increasingly restricted to mad scientist roles because of his inability to speak English more clearly. In 1955 Bela Lugosi was in a sad state. . At that time, in 1938, the new father was so strapped for cash he had to borrow from a Hollywood relief fund to pay the hospital bills. In Tim Burton's Ed Wood, Bela Lugosi is portrayed by Martin Landau, who received the 1994 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for the performance. Bela Lugosi Jr. was boarded at the Elsinore Naval and Military School in Lake Elsinore, and also lived with Lillian's parents while she and Bela were touring. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. The studio then rehired Lugosi to star in new films. Mason was noticeably taller and thinner than Lugosi, and had the lower half of his face covered with his cape in every shot, as Lugosi sometimes did in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein. Hope later gave most of Lugosi's personal belongings and memorabilia to Bela's young neighborhood friend Richard Sheffield, who gave Lugosi's duplicate Dracula cape to Bela Jr. and sold some of the other items to Forrest J. Ackerman. [12][4] They escaped to Vienna before settling in Berlin (in the Langestrasse), where he began acting in German silent films. [16] He only declared his intention to become a US citizen in 1928; on June 26, 1931, he was naturalized. [72] In the Hungarian production, directed by Istvn Szab, Lugosi was played by Ivan Darvas. [43], In 1959, a British film called Lock Up Your Daughters was theatrically released (in the U.K.), composed of clips from Bela Lugosi's Monogram pictures from the 1940s. Fast Facts: Bela Lugosi. Tor Johnson said in interviews that Lugosi kept screaming that he wanted to die the night they shared a hotel room together. This recording, "The Thirsty Death," is a considerable mystery unto itself. 's salary? 61. He wasn't Universal Pictures' first choice, though. Later, the emotional and physical wounds of the war not to mention the pressures of Hollywood caught up with him and he had a very public struggle with drug addiction. [76][77], The Ellis Island Immigration Museum in New York City features a live 30-minute play that focuses on Lugosi's illegal entry into the country via New Orleans and his arrival at Ellis Island months later to enter the country legally. Generation generation). He might have been a bit blood thirsty, but he was a hero, too. [35] Lugosi memorized the script for the skit, but became confused on the air when Berle began to ad lib. Think Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Lugosi was never a contender for such an award. He was born in Lugos on 1882-10-20. Lugosi eventually grew very bitter over the fact that the general public took him for Dracula. Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. It might have been a turning point for the actor, but within the year he was back on Hollywood's Poverty Row, playing leads for Sam Katzman. If Lugosi hoped that the success of Dracula would allow him to emerge from the gentleman vampire's ahem shadow, he was sorely mistaken. When is Bela Lugosi The cape Lugosi wore in Dracula (1931) was in the possession of his family until it was put up for auction in 2011. Despite his critically acclaimed performance on stage, Lugosi was not Universal Pictures' first choice for the role of Dracula when the company optioned the rights to the Deane play and began production in 1930. (At the end of the previous film in the series, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Lugosi's voice had been dubbed over that of Lon Chaney Jr. since Ygor's brain was now in the Monster's skull[34].) It was not immediately successful, though. Independent producer Jack Broder took Lugosi at his word, casting him in a jungle-themed comedy, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952), starring nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Jerry Lewis look-alike Sammy Petrillo, whose act closely resembled that of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (Martin and Lewis). The film played at midnight with a number of celebrities in the audience that night (Judy Garland, Ginger Rogers, Rock Hudson, Broderick Crawford, Gracie Allen, Eddie Cantor, Shelley Winters and others). Itsvan died when Bela was just 12-years-old, throwing the family fortunes into turmoil. [17], On his arrival in America, the 6-foot-1-inch (1.85m),[15] 180-pound (82kg) Lugosi worked for some time as a laborer, and then entered the theater in New York City's Hungarian immigrant colony. He currently resides in Lugoj, Romania. [80], In 2020, Legendary Comics published an adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula novel, which used the likeness of Lugosi. Continue to the next page to see Bela Lugosi net worth, estimated salary and earnings. Blasko".[70]. Back in 1950 however, Lugosi had appeared on a one-hour TV program called Murder and Bela Lugosi (which WPIX-TV broadcast on Sept. 18, 1950) in which Lugosi was interviewed and provided commentary about a number of his old horror films while clips from the films were being shown; historian Gary Rhodes thinks some of this Lugosi TV production found its way into the 1959 British film, which would finally explain the mystery. It was expected to sell for up to $2 million,[63] but has since been listed again by Bonhams in 2018. [81], A 2021 hardcover graphic novel depicting the life of Bela Lugosi was written and drawn by Koren Shadmi, entitled Lugosi: The Rise and Fall of Hollywood's Dracula.[82]. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times. pg. [30] Lugosi did get a few heroic leads, as in Universal's The Black Cat after Karloff had been accorded the more colorful role of the villain, The Invisible Ray, and a romantic role in producer Sol Lesser's adventure serial The Return of Chandu (1934), but his typecasting problem appears to have been too entrenched to be alleviated by those films. Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he had been blacklisted by the main studios and had no choice but to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row films. The problem first manifested itself in 1937, when Lugosi was forced to withdraw from a leading role in a serial production, The Secret of Treasure Island, due to constant back pain. It was his first English-speaking role. Following his treatment, Lugosi made one final film, in late 1955, The Black Sleep, for Bel-Air Pictures, which was released in the summer of 1956 through United Artists with a promotional campaign that included several personal appearances by Lugosi and his co-stars, as well as Maila Nurmi (TV's horror host "Vampira"). Lugosi made 12 films in Hungary between 1917 and 1918 before leaving for Germany. It's Dracula's curse.". His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934's The Black Cat and 1935's The Raven. Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. Lugosi acted in several Hungarian plays before breaking out into his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy, in 1922. In 1951, while in England to play a six-month tour of Dracula, Lugosi co-starred in a lowbrow film comedy, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (also known as Vampire Over London and My Son, the Vampire), released the following year. Sheffield said years later "Lugosi had probably spent it all on alcohol." With Lugosi in his Dracula cape, Wood shot impromptu test footage, with no particular storyline in mind, in front of Tor Johnson's home, at a suburban graveyard, and in front of Lugosi's apartment building on Carlton Way. A copy sold for $798,000 at Christie's in May 2000. He also continued to lobby for his prized role in the film version of Dracula. Read on for more on this caped legend of stage and screen. Bela Lugosi was born Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and Istvn Blask, a banker. Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein(1948). Bela Lugosi Net Worth is $200,000 Bela Lugosi Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018. . Bela Lugosi, born on October 20, 1882, began his acting career when he was a teenager in Hungary and went on to become one of the best-known actors in the world. Lugosi claimed he performed the Dracula play around 1,000 times during his lifetime. Bela Lugosi was born on October 20, 1882 in Lugoj, Romania (73 years old). His only television dramatic role was on the anthology series Suspense on October 11, 1949, in an adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. The young Bela was born just the year before. The rivalry all started, according to this piece on Bloody Disgusting, when Lugosi turned down the chance to play Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film version of Mary Shelley's groundbreaking novel. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover), Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. Ames was in turn replaced with David Manners, who would instead come to play John Harker. Continue reading to discover who . Lugosi acted in several Hungarian language plays before starring in his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy in 1922. 's girlfriend? Lugosi married Hope Lininger, his fifth wife, in 1955; they remained married until his death. He eventually became a U.S. citizen in 1931, soon after the release of his film version of Dracula.[12][4]. His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934's The Black Cat and 1935's The Raven. Lugosi, the youngest of four children, was born Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask in 1882 in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania) to Hungarian father Istvn Blask, a baker who later became a banker, and Serbian-born mother Paula de Vojnich. The couple divorced in 1920, reputedly over political differences with her parents. She would sign her letters "A dash of Hope". Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica, ostensibly aggravated by injuries received during his military service. Find out Bela Lugosinet worth 2020, salary 2020 detail bellow. Lugosi's partnership with Wood began in 1953 with the cross-dressing cult classic, Glen or Glenda, written and directed by Wood, a known transvestite. [54](Lillian eventually did marry Brian Donlevy in 1966, by which time she had also become an alcoholic and she died in 1981. His earliest. [2] He later starred in the 1931 film version of Dracula directed by Tod Browning and produced by Universal Pictures. . After living briefly in Germany, Lugosi left Europe by ship and arrived in New Orleans on October 27, 1920, and, after making his way north, underwent his primary alien inspection at Ellis Island, N.Y. on March 23, 1921. According to Bela G. Lugosi (his son), Forrest Ackerman, Dolores Fuller and Richard Sheffield, the film's portrayal of Lugosi is inaccurate: In real life, he never used profanity, did not hate Karloff, owned no small dogs, nor did he sleep in a coffin. Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots. In the same interview he expressed a desire to play more comedy, as he had in the Mother Riley farce. He was discovered in bed by his fifth wife, Hope, upon her return from work. The Horace Liveright production was successful, running for 261 performances before touring the United States to much fanfare and critical acclaim throughout 1928 and 1929. It didn't help matters that money was often tight. Incidentally, Lugosi persuaded Bow to pose nude for a portrait artist friend of his, and, as this article on Nitrateville reveals, he happily hung the painting in his many homes, over the possible objections of Mrs. Lugosi Number Four and Five. Dracula (1931) $3,500 : 50 Million Frenchmen (1931) $1,000 : Chandu the Magician (1932) $2,500 : White Zombie (1932) . In fact, he often told reporters that sex was the most important thing in the universe. Bela Lugosi was born on October 20, 1882 in Lugoj, Romania. Lugosi's first film appearance was in the movie Az ezredes (The Colonel, 1917). He was born in Hungary and died in Los Angeles, California, in 1956. Strange, but also fitting and bittersweet. It was an inescapable legacy. pg. Lugosi's first film appearance was in the 1917 Hungarian silent film Leoni Leo. On his arrival in America, the 6-foot-1-inch (1.85 m), 180-pound (82 kg) Lugosi worked for some time as a laborer, and then entered the theater in New York City's Hungarian immigrant colony. His net worth has been growing significantly in 2022-2023. [4], Lugosi eventually travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana in December, 1920 working as a crewman aboard a merchant ship, then made his way north to New York City, where he again took up acting in (and sometimes directing) stage plays in 19211922, then worked in the New York silent film industry from 1923 to 1926.