Bela Lugosi

Lugosi's first film appearance was in the movie Az ezredes (The Colonel, 1917). When appearing in Hungarian silent films, he used the stage name Arisztid Olt.[8] Lugosi made 12 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. Lugosi was proscribed from acting due to his participation in the formation of an actors' union. 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 Trümmern des Paradieses, 1920) and Caravan of Death (Die Todeskarawane, also 1920) with Dora Gerson (Gerson, who was Jewish, died in Auschwitz).

Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, intending to emigrate 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.[9] He declared his intention to become a US citizen in 1928; on June 26, 1931, he was naturalized.[10]

On his arrival in America, the 6-foot-1-inch (1.85 m),[8] 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 plays before breaking out into his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy, in 1922.[11] Three more parts came in 1925–26, including a five-month run in the comedy-fantasy The Devil in the Cheese.[12]

In 1925, he appeared as an Arab Sheik in Arabesque which premiered in Buffalo, New York at the Teck Theatre before moving to Broadway.[13] His first American film role was in the melodrama The Silent Command (1923). Several more silent roles followed, villains and continental types, all in productions made in the New York area.[14]

Lugosi in Dracula, the role for which he became most widely known.

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.[15] 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. In 1928, Lugosi decided to stay in California when the play ended its West Coast run. His performance had piqued the interest of Fox Film, and he was cast in the studio's silent film The Veiled Woman (1929). He also appeared in the film Prisoners (also 1929), believed lost, which was released in both silent and talkie versions.[16][17]

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.[18]

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 were considered before Browning cast Lugosi for the role, but the film was a hit.[19]

Irene Ware and Lugosi in The Raven (1935)

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 Raven (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939) for Universal, and the independent White Zombie (1932). His accent, while a part of his image, limited the roles 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).[20] 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 — good friends. 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).[21] Karloff also insinuated that his rival could not act, claiming Lugosi had "never learned his trade". A small percentage of critics cited his "dull and slow performance" in Dracula as a great example of minimal dialogue with no real acting prowess needed. 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.

With Angelo Rossitto in Scared to Death (1947)

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."[22]

Lugosi in The Devil Bat (1940)

A number of factors began to work against Lugosi's career in the mid-1930s. Universal changed management in 1936, and because of a British ban on horror films, dropped them from their production schedule; Lugosi found himself consigned to Universal's non-horror B-film unit, at times in small roles where he was obviously used for "name value" only. Throughout the 1930s, Lugosi, experiencing a severe career decline despite popularity with audiences (Universal executives always preferred his rival Karloff), accepted many leading roles from independent producers like Nat Levine, Sol Lesser, and Sam Katzman. These low-budget thrillers indicate that Lugosi was less discriminating than Karloff in selecting screen vehicles, but the exposure helped Lugosi financially if not artistically. Lugosi tried to keep busy with stage work, but had to borrow money from the Actors Fund of America to pay hospital bills when his only child, Bela George Lugosi, was born in 1938.

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.

The first was Universal's Son of Frankenstein (1939), when he played the character role of Ygor, a mad blacksmith with a broken neck, in heavy makeup and beard. The same year saw Lugosi making a rare appearance in an A-list motion picture: he was a stern commissar in Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer's romantic comedy Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Lugosi was effective in this small but prestigious character role, and it could 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 released by Monogram Pictures. At Universal, he often received star billing for what amounted to a supporting part. The Gorilla (1939) had him playing straight man to Patsy Kelly and the Ritz Brothers.

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

Ostensibly due to injuries received during military service, Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica. Though at first he was treated with pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. The growth of his dependence on analgesic drugs, particularly morphine and, after 1947 when it became available in America, methadone, was directly proportional to the dwindling of screen offers. He was finally cast in the role of Frankenstein's monster for Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), but Lugosi had no dialogue. Lugosi's voice had been dubbed over that of Lon Chaney Jr., from line readings at the end of The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942).[23] Lugosi played Dracula for a second and last 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, low-budget features. From 1947 to 1950, he performed in summer stock, often in productions of Dracula or Arsenic and Old Lace, and during the other parts 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.[24] Lugosi memorized the script for the skit, but became confused on the air when Berle began to ad lib.[25] 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.[26]

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), co-starring nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Sammy Petrillo, whose act closely resembled that of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

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. Bela took over the role of Jonathan Brewster from Boris Karloff for Arsenic and Old Lace. Bela 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.[20][27]

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 Dr. Frankenstein-like 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 said to be intended to help pay for his hospital expenses. According to Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra, when the entertainer heard of Lugosi's problems, he helped with expenses and visited Lugosi at the hospital. Sinatra would recall Lugosi's amazement at his visit, since the two men had never met before.[28]

During an impromptu interview upon his exit from the treatment center in 1955, Lugosi stated that he was about to go to work on a new Ed Wood film, 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 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 (1959), which was mostly filmed after Lugosi died. Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots.[29] 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. To Lugosi's disappointment, however, his role in this film was that of a mute, with no dialogue.[30]