Bela Lugosi

Bela Lugosi in 1920

Lugosi in Shadowland Magazine, 1923

Lugosi's first film appearance was in the 1917 Hungarian silent film Leoni Leo.[2] When appearing in Hungarian silent films, he mostly used the stage name Arisztid Olt.[15] Lugosi made at least 10 films in Hungary between 1917 and 1918 before leaving for Germany. Following the collapse of Béla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, leftists and trade unionists became vulnerable, some being imprisoned or executed in public. Lugosi was proscribed from acting due to his participation in the formation of an actors' union. Exiled in Weimar-era Germany, he co-starred in at least 14 German silent films in 1920, among them Hypnose (1920), Der Januskopf (1920) and an adaptation of the Karl May novel Caravan of Death (1920).

Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, emigrating by ship to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. He made his way to New York and was inspected by immigration officers at Ellis Island in March 1921.[16] He only declared his intention to become a US citizen in 1928; on June 26, 1931, he was naturalized.[17]

On his arrival in America, the 6-foot-1-inch (1.85 m),[15] 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. With fellow expatriate Hungarian actors he formed a small stock company that toured Eastern cities, playing for immigrant audiences. Lugosi acted in several Hungarian language plays before starring in his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy in 1922.[18] Three more parts came in 1925–26, including a five-month run in the comedy-fantasy The Devil in the Cheese.[19] In 1925, he played an Arab Sheik in Arabesque which premiered in Buffalo, New York at the Teck Theatre before moving to Broadway.[20]

His first American film role was in the silent melodrama The Silent Command (1923) which was filmed in New York. Four other silent roles followed, villains and continental types, all in productions made in the New York area.[21] A rumor has circulated for decades among film historians that Lugosi played an uncredited bit part as a clown in the 1924 Lon Chaney Hollywood film He Who Gets Slapped, but this has been heavily disputed. 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. It was thought to be evidence that Lugosi appeared in the film, but historians all agree that is very unlikely, since Lugosi was in both Chicago (appearing in a play called The Werewolf) and New York at the time that film was being made in Hollywood.[22]

Bela Lugosi as Count Dracula in 1931

Edward Van Sloan as Van Helsing and Lugosi as Dracula (1931)

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.[23] The Horace Liveright production was successful, running in New York City for 261 performances before touring the United States to much fanfare and critical acclaim throughout 1928 and 1929. In 1928, Lugosi decided to stay in California when the play ended its first West Coast run. His performance had piqued the interest of Fox Film, and he was cast in the Hollywood studio's silent film The Veiled Woman (1929). He also appeared in the film Prisoners (also 1929), believed lost, which was released in both a silent and partial talkie version.[24]

In 1929, with no other film roles in sight, he returned to the stage as Dracula for a short West Coast tour of the play. Lugosi remained in California where he resumed his film work under contract with Fox, appearing in early talkies often as a heavy or an "exotic sheik". He also continued to lobby for his prized role in the film version of Dracula.[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.[lower-alpha 1] Different prominent actors, such as Paul Muni, Chester Morris, Ian Keith, John Wray, Joseph Schildkraut, Arthur Edmund Carewe, William Courtenay, John Carradine, and Conrad Veidt were considered. Lew Ayres was eventually hired to play Dracula, only to be replaced by Robert Ames after being cast in a different role in a different Universal Pictures film. Ames was in turn replaced with David Manners, who would instead come to play John Harker.[26] Lugosi had played the role on Broadway,[27] and was considered before director Tod Browning cast him in the role. The film was a major hit, but Lugosi was paid a salary of only $3,500, since he had too eagerly accepted the role.[12][28]

Warner Oland and Lugosi in The Black Camel (1931)

Boris Karloff and Bela Lugosi in The Raven (1935)

Lugosi in Mark of the Vampire (1935) with Elizabeth Allen and Henry Wadsworth

Through his association with Dracula (in which he appeared with minimal makeup, using his natural, heavily accented voice), Lugosi found himself typecast as a horror villain in films such as Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932), The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935) for Universal, and the independent White Zombie (1932). His accent, while a part of his image, limited the type of role he could play.

Lugosi did attempt to break type by auditioning for other roles. He lost out to Lionel Barrymore for the role of Grigori Rasputin in Rasputin and the Empress (also 1932); C. Henry Gordon for the role of Surat Khan in Charge of the Light Brigade (1936), and Basil Rathbone for the role of Commissar Dimitri Gorotchenko in Tovarich (1937), a role Lugosi had played on stage.[29] He played the elegant, somewhat hot-tempered General Nicholas Strenovsky-Petronovich in International House (1933).

Regardless of controversy, five films at Universal – The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Son of Frankenstein (1939), Black Friday (1940), plus minor cameo performances in Gift of Gab (1934) and two at RKO Pictures, You'll Find Out (1940) and The Body Snatcher (1945) – paired Lugosi with Boris Karloff. Despite the relative size of their roles, Lugosi inevitably received second billing, below Karloff. There are contradictory reports of Lugosi's attitude toward Karloff, some claiming that he was openly resentful of Karloff's long-term success and ability to gain good roles beyond the horror arena, while others suggested the two actors were – for a time, at least – amicable. Karloff himself in interviews suggested that Lugosi was initially mistrustful of him when they acted together, believing that the Englishman would attempt to upstage him. When this proved not to be the case, according to Karloff, Lugosi settled down and they worked together amicably (though some have further commented that the English Karloff's on-set demand to break from filming for mid-afternoon tea annoyed Lugosi).[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.

Lugosi addressed his plea to be cast in non-horror roles directly to casting directors through his listing in the 1937 Players Directory, published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in which he (or his agent) calls the idea that he is only fit for horror films "an error."[31]

Boris Karloff as Frankenstein's monster, Basil Rathbone as Dr. Frankenstein's son, and Lugosi as Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Lon Chaney Jr. as Frankenstein's monster, Evelyn Ankers, and Lugosi as Ygor in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942)

Lugosi as Frankenstein's monster and Lon Chaney Jr. as the Wolf Man in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943)

Lobby card for The Ape Man (1943) with Lugosi and Minerva Urecal

Lugosi in The Devil Bat (1940)

Lugosi (center) with Polly Ann Young and Clarence Muse in The Invisible Ghost (1941)

Tor Johnson and Lugosi in Bride of the Monster (1956)

Historian John McElwee reports, in his 2013 book Showmen, Sell It Hot!, that Bela Lugosi's popularity received a much-needed boost in August 1938, when California theater owner Emil Umann revived Dracula and Frankenstein as a special double feature. The combination was so successful that Umann scheduled extra shows to accommodate the capacity crowds, and invited Lugosi to appear in person, which thrilled new audiences that had never seen Lugosi's classic performance. "I owe it all to that little man at the Regina Theatre," said Lugosi of exhibitor Umann. "I was dead, and he brought me back to life." Universal took notice of the tremendous business and launched its own national re-release of the same two horror favorites. The studio then rehired Lugosi to star in new films, fortunately just as Lugosi's fourth wife had given birth to a son.

Universal cast Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein (1939), appearing in the character role of Ygor, a mad blacksmith with a broken neck, in heavy makeup and beard. Lugosi was third-billed with his name above the title alongside Basil Rathbone as Dr. Frankenstein's son and Boris Karloff reprising his role as Frankenstein's monster. Regarding Son of Frankenstein, the film's director Rowland V. Lee said his crew let Lugosi "work on the characterization; the interpretation he gave us was imaginative and totally unexpected ... when we finished shooting, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he stole the show. Karloff's monster was weak by comparison."[32]

The same year saw Lugosi making a rare appearance in an A-list motion picture: he was a stern Soviet commissar in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer romantic comedy Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Lugosi was quite effective in this small but prestigious character part and he even received top billing among the film's supporting cast, all of whom had significantly larger roles. 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. These horror, comedy and mystery B-films were mostly released by Monogram Pictures. At Universal, he often received star billing for what amounted to a supporting part.

Lugosi went to 20th Century-Fox for The Gorilla (1939), which had him playing straight man (a butler) to Patsy Kelly and the Ritz Brothers. When Lugosi's Black Friday premiered in 1940 on a double bill with the Vincent Price film The House of the Seven Gables, Lugosi and Price both appeared in person at the Chicago theatre where it opened on Feb. 29, 1940 and remained for four performances[33].

Ostensibly aggravated by injuries received during his military service, Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica. Though at first he was treated with benign pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. The growth of his dependence on opiates, particularly morphine and, after 1947 when it became available in America, methadone, was directly proportional to the dwindling of Lugosi's screen offers. He was finally cast in the role of Frankenstein's monster for Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). (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].) But at the last minute, Lugosi's heavily-accented dialogue was edited out after the film was completed, along with the idea of the Monster being blind, leaving his performance featuring groping, outstretched arms and moving lips seeming enigmatic (and funny) to audiences. Lugosi played Dracula for a second and final time on film in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).

Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was Bela Lugosi's last "A" movie. For the remainder of his life, he appeared – less and less frequently – in obscure, forgettable, low-budget B features. From 1947 to 1950, he performed in summer stock, often in productions of Dracula or Arsenic and Old Lace, and during the rest of the year, made personal appearances in a touring "spook show", and on early commercial television.

In September 1949, Milton Berle invited Lugosi to appear in a sketch on Texaco Star Theatre.[35] Lugosi memorized the script for the skit, but became confused on the air when Berle began to ad lib.[36] He also appeared on the anthology series Suspense on October 11, 1949, in a live adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado".[37]

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. 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". In the same interview he expressed a desire to play more comedy, as he had in the Mother Riley farce. 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), who promptly sued the duo.

Lugosi enjoyed a lively career on stage, with plenty of personal appearances. As film offers declined, he became more and more dependent on live venues to support his family. Lugosi took over the role of Jonathan Brewster from Boris Karloff for Arsenic and Old Lace. Lugosi had also expressed interest in playing Elwood P. Dowd in Harvey to help himself professionally. He also made plenty of personal appearances to promote his horror image and/or an accompanying film.[29][38]

The Vincent Price film House of Wax premiered in Los Angeles at the Paramount Theatre on April 16, 1953. The film played at midnight with a number of celebrities in the audience that night (Broderick Crawford, Gracie Allen, Eddie Cantor, Rock Hudson, Judy Garland, Shelley Winters, Ginger Rogers and others). Producer Alex Gordon, knowing Lugosi was in dire need of cash, arranged for the aging actor to stand outside the theater wearing a cape and dark glasses, holding a man costumed as a gorilla on a leash, later allowing himself to be photographed drinking a glass of milk at a Red Cross booth there. When Lugosi playfully attempted to bite the "nurse" in attendance there, she overreacted and spilled a glass of milk all over his shirt and cape. Lugosi was interviewed by a female reporter afterward, who messed up the interview by asking the prearranged questions out of order, thoroughly confusing the aging star. Embarrassed, Lugosi left without attending the screening.[39]

Lugosi in Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)

Late in his life, Bela Lugosi again received star billing in films when the ambitious but financially limited filmmaker Ed Wood, a fan of Lugosi, found him living in obscurity and near-poverty and offered him roles in his films, such as an anonymous narrator in Glen or Glenda (1953) and a mad scientist in Bride of the Monster (1955). During post-production of the latter, Lugosi decided to seek treatment for his drug addiction, and the premiere of the film was arranged to raise money for Lugosi's hospital expenses. According to Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra, when the entertainer heard of Lugosi's problems, he sent him a $100 check and visited Lugosi at the hospital. Sinatra would recall Lugosi's amazement at his visit, since the two men had never met before.[40]

During an impromptu interview upon his release from the treatment center in 1955, Lugosi stated that he was about to begin work on a new Ed Wood film called The Ghoul Goes West. This was one of several projects proposed by Wood, including The Phantom Ghoul and Dr. Acula. With Lugosi in his Dracula cape, Wood shot impromptu test footage, with no particular storyline in mind, in front of Tor Johnson's home, a suburban graveyard, and in front of Lugosi's apartment building on Carlton Way. This footage ended up in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957[41]), which was filmed in 1956 soon after Lugosi died. Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots.[42] 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.

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 Bela and his co-stars, as well as Maila Nurmi (TV's horror host "Vampira"). To Lugosi's disappointment, however, his role in this film was that of a mute butler with no dialogue. Lugosi was intoxicated and very ill during the film's promotional campaign and had to return to L.A. earlier than planned. He never got to see the finished film.[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. 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). 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 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 footage found its way into the 1959 British film, which would finally explain the mystery.[44][45]