Bela Lugosi: Sad Ironies of Hollywood's Count Dracula

"Every actor's greatest ambition is to create his own, definite and original role, a character with which he will always be identified. In my case, that role was Dracula."

Bela Lugosi was born as Béla Ferenc Dezsõ Blaskó on October 20, 1882, in Lugos, Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), outside the western border of Transylvania. Lugosi began his acting career in 1902. He then moving to Budapest in 1911, where he played dozens of roles with the National Theater of Hungary in the period 1913–1919.

Legally inspected for immigration at Ellis Island in March 1921, Lugosi became an American citizen in 1931, then entered the theater in New York City's Hungarian immigrant colony. In the summer of 1927 he was approached to star in a Broadway production of Dracula adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston from Bram Stoker's novel, subsequently filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing him as the screen's greatest personifications of Dracula. Following the success of Dracula, Lugosi received a contract with Universal.

Ironically, his association with Dracula, along with his heavily accented voice limited the roles he could play to only typecast as a horror villain in such movies. Throughout the 1930s his career rapidly decline. Lugosi accepted only small roles in non-horror, low-grade Hollywood's Poverty Row or B-movies where he was used for his "name value" only.

Lugosi ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time Edward D. Wood, Jr., such as Glen or Glenda, Bride of the Monster, and in Ed Wood's legendary Worst Movie of All Time Plan 9 From Outer Space as Ghoul Man (interspersed with a double because Lugosi died during production). At the time of his death (16 August 1956), Lugosi was in such poor financial straits that Frank Sinatra quietly paid for his funeral. He was buried in his Dracula cape, in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

An excellent video Tribute To Bela Lugosi by FritzFassbender: