1882-1956
Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó was born on this date in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire)--now part of Romania as Lugoj and not far from the real Transylvansia [Note: in the original placing of his name, his surname would have come first as par the norm with Hungarian names]. He was born into a Hungarian speaking family with 3 older siblings; his father István was a banker; his mother was of Serbian ancestry. He was raised in the Roman Catholic tradition. At the age of 12 he dropped out of school to work. He would find work in the town of Resita, where traveling performers would frequent. He said that her became enamored with acting through watching them there. He started his acting career around the age of 20 in 1901 or 1902--he acted in smallish parts in all types of performances in regional or provincial theaters. By 1903 and 1904 he had steady performance work. By 1911 he had graduated to larger, even starring, roles and had even taken on Shakespeare. In that same year, he relocated to Budapest on joined the National Theater. He was there from 1914 through 1919 in mostly supporting roles (though he would later claim that he was a top billed actor to bolster his acting bonafides). These years were interrupted by active military service from 1914 through 1916 in World War I, fighting in the Austro-Hungarian Army, where he ultimately rose to the rank of L. He was a leader of ski patrol and his outfit was sent to the Russian Front, where, as he recounted they were nearly all slaughtered. He, himself wounded twice before, was wounded a third time, surviving amongst the dead of his unit; for his service at the Front he was awarded the Wound Metal; but his wounds would leave him with lasting sciatica (and possible, at least for a time, PTSD). Despite his war injuries, he returned to theater but left in 1919, fleeing the country during the revolution in Hungary that year. He first made his way to Vienna, and then on to Berlin, were he settled for a short time and attempted to continue his acting career. He eventually immigrated to the United States via a merchant ship as a working crewman that docked in port at New Orleans. He made his film debut in his native Hungary in 1917 under the acting name of Olt Arisztid, despite that he had been using the name "Lugosi" both privately and professionally for well over a decade (a name that was derived from his birthplace Lugos and meant to honor it). The film was title Álarcosbál, translated into English it is Masked Ball and was directed by fellow Romanian born Hungarian: Alfréd Deésy. Bela, or rather "Olt," appeared in the male lead opposite Annie Góth. Lugosi actually appeared in nearly 15 films in Hungary before fleeing, one--the Michael Curtiz film 99 in 1918--under the name "Albert Lugesi." His last Hungarian film was another Deésy film entitled Casanova in which Bela played the title character. He also made a large number of films while living in Germany; the first of which was Nachenschnur des tot. It was in Germany that he appeared in his first horror film and it a famous one--famously lost. Billed as Bela Lugosi he assayed the role Dr. Warren's Diener in F. W. Munau's The Head of Janus in 1920. A complex psychological horror, the leading roles were occupied by Conrad Viedt and Margarete Schlegel; it was Murnau's Jekyll and Hyde. His last German film was Ihre Hoheit die Tänzerin starring Lee Parry and directed by Richard Eichberg in 1922. His first American film was a Fox spy melodrama with a Panama Canal plot; The Silent Command was directed by J. Gordon Edwards. Bela, being an actual foreigner, of course was cast as the terrorist Hisston (and credited, due to a mistake, as Belo Lugosi), the film was released in August of 1923. His movie appearances over the next few years were scant due his working in live theater in New York, eventually making it all the way to Broadway. He would not appear in a great number of fully silent films after this in fully credited roles. He appeared in only one credited film in 1924--the very small budgeted The Rejected Woman and just two films in 1925. He did make an uncredited appearance (in two places in the film) in Victor Sjöström's very famous He Who Gets Slapped starring Lon Chaney in 1924 (only very recently verified actually). Probably his two most well known silents came in 1925. The Midnight Girl is definitely the better known of the two, due it's wide availability and inclusion in several "Bela box sets" (I have two copies of it in such box sets, and a further 2 more from budget horror sets, though the film is a melodrama; so it is AVAILABLE!). The other is the George Terwilliger directed spy melodrama (yes, another one) in which Bela plays a Russian agent Daughters Who Pay. Both appearances are rather famous for on-screen kisses that Bela's characters have; the one in Daughters Who Pay has been remarked on due to it's blood content...his character kisses a dancing woman with a rose in her mouth and it sticks his character Romonsky, who then is seen with blood running down his lips...something that we are deprived of in his role as Count Dracula. He did not appear again in a feature until 1929, which came in the now lost Fox melodrama The Veiled Woman, a film that was released in one sound version and one silent version, and barley worth the mention in Lugosi's career as the "murdered suitor" if it were not for the fact that film also features Lupita Tovar in an equally small role. It is notable because Tovar would appear in the "Spanish Dracula" Drácula in the "Mina" character place of "Eva" in 1931. That the two appeared in a film together just two years prior is certainly worth the note (the film was Tovar's debut). He had just three more performances in 1929. His first talking sequence film was as a night club owner in the partial silent Prisoners, a Warner's crime film. He did not act in the Conrad Veidt film The Last Performance, but rather provided the Hungarian dub for Veidt's main character for release back in his home country. It is ironic that, to my knowledge, this is his only Hungarian speaking role in a horror film (he did provide Hungarian dub for at least one other film in 1930's that we know of, there may have been more). One might be tempted to think that this was one of the reasons he got cast in Dracula, if it were not for his performance as Inspector Delzante in Tod Browning's full sound The Thirteenth Chair--released on the 19th of October, just one day prior to Lugosi's 47th birthday. It also his last film of the decade. He appeared in six films in 1930, the first of which was Such Men Are Dangerous--a film directed by Kenneth Hawks, Howard Hawks' ill-fated brother. His seventh film appearance of the 1930's is the big one: Count Dracula in Tod Browning's Universal classic Dracula. I would say "the rest is history"--especially in regards to Lugosi's typecasting in horror, but his career has one final silent film connection. In 1935, Lugosi appeared in another Tod Browning film Mark of the Vampire. The film was close to being a scene by scene--but all talking--remake of Browning's now famously lost silent horror of 1927 London After Midnight, which is equally famous for starring Lon Chaney. Lugosi struggled with the burden of typecasting; he also struggled with drug addiction after getting hooked on pain killers legally prescribed for his massively painful sciatica. Bela Lugosi passed away of a heart attack on the 16th of August in 1956 at the age of 73. His last acting role came in in the scifi/horror film The Black Sheep in 1956; he appeared along side Basil Rathbone, John Carradine and Lon Chaney Jr. He also did two guest appearances on television shows; his debut on the small screen came in the anthology series Suspense (A Cask of Amontillado) and he made an appearance on variety show The Paul Winchell Show in October of 1950 (this is the appearance that has become infamous when it was included in the Tim Burton film Ed Wood--as the version seen in the film is pure fiction--Lugosi did not have trouble with his lines and the appearance came years before collaborations with Wood). He is buried at the Catholic Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City in California. He was buried in his famous cape. Though he is a huge horror icon now, that is not what he envisioned his acting career would be--quite the opposite actually, as he wanted to play romantic leads and greatly enjoyed classical drama. None the less, us horror hounds are eternally grateful!! Happy Birthday Bela!
(source: AJM (Find a Grave)]
(source: Charlie (Find a Grave)]
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