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. What terrible revenge has Lugosi's character concocted for his revenge? Or Heath Ledger as the Joker. p. 203. [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. 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. Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask (Hungarian:[bel frnts d blko]; October 20, 1882 August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (/losi/; Hungarian:[luoi]), was a HungarianAmerican actor, best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 horror classic Dracula, Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956.[1]. In June 1917, Lugosi married 19-year-old Ilona Szmik (18981991) in Hungary. Bela George Lugosi net worth is $9 Million Bela George Lugosi Wiki: Salary, Married, Wedding, Spouse, Family Bela Lugosi Jr. was born on January 5, 1938 in Los Angeles, California, USA as Bela George Lugosi. pg. He also continued to lobby for his prized role in the film version of Dracula. [2] When appearing in Hungarian silent films, he mostly used the stage name Arisztid Olt. A copy sold for $798,000 at Christie's in May 2000. His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934's The Black Cat and 1935's The Raven. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. Hope told Sheffield she had searched the apartment for several days looking for $3,000 she suspected Lugosi had hidden there, but she never found it. These horror, comedy and mystery B-films were mostly released by Monogram Pictures. He later allowed himself to be photographed drinking a glass of milk at a Red Cross booth there. 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. Hungarian actor who was immortalized as Dracula in 1931. Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, intending to emigrate to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. It also guaranteed that he would never work as a serious actor again. The studio then rehired Lugosi to star in new films, fortunately just as Lugosi's fourth wife had given birth to a son. He was the youngest of four children. If Lugosi hoped that the success of Dracula would allow him to emerge from the gentleman vampire's ahem shadow, he was sorely mistaken. [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. He'd developed the addictions over time, and, as this article in Open Culture shows, he'd grown so sick he could no longer live on his own. In 1966, Bela Jr. and Lillian sued Universal Studios for using Lugosi's personality rights without his heirs' permission. [43][71], Pter Mller's 1998 theatrical play Lugosi the Shadow of the Vampire (Hungarian: Lugosi a vmpr rnyka) is based on Lugosi's life, telling the story of his life as he became typecast as Dracula and as his drug addiction worsened. Bela Lugosi was a working actor when World War I broke out in Europe. His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934s The Black Cat and 1935s The Raven. In 1955, recently divorced from his fourth wife, he checked himself into the Los Angeles General Hospital Psychopathic Ward, hoping to kick his methadone and morphine habits. Attendees included Forrest J. Ackerman, Ed Wood (who was a pall bearer), Tor Johnson, Conrad Brooks, Richard Sheffield, both of the widows (Hope and Lillian), Bela Lugosi Jr., Norma McCarty, Loretta King, Paul Marco and actor George Becwar. [44][45], Lugosi repeatedly married. Online estimates of Bela Lugosis net worth vary. The film would be Bela Lugosi's last "A" movie. The song was a part of the Light Leaks record. I was saying how Bela Lugosi was the quintessential Dracula, the elegant depiction of the character. The divorce became official on December 9, 1929. 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. Hal B. Wallis, Martin and Lewis's producer, unsuccessfully sued Broder. Also in 1931, he became a U.S. citizen. Lugosi eventually grew very bitter over the fact that the general public took him for Dracula. His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934's The Black Cat and 1935's The Raven. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. With fellow expatriate Hungarian actors he formed a small stock company that toured Eastern cities, playing for immigrant audiences. 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]. Today is the 134thbirthday of NAME: Bela Lugosi OCCUPATION: Actor BIRTH DATE: October 20, 1882 DEATH DATE: August 16, 1956 EDUCATION: Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts PLACE OF BIRTH: Lugos, Hun, Bela Lugosi: Happy 132nd birthday - Blog - Spokane7. Bela Lugosi Death: and Cause of Death. 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. In 1928, Lugosi decided to stay in California when the play ended its first West Coast run. During World War I, he served as an infantryman in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914 to 1916, rising to the rank of Lieutenant. 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. When his son, Bela Jr., was born in 1938, Lugosi couldn't afford to pay the hospital bill. The one that had been on the night before was Dracula [1931]. In 1996, he had a supporting role in Roland Emmerich's Independence Day. Following a successful run as Count Dracula in the stage version of Bram Stoker's bloody tale, Lugosi was cast as the lead in the film adaptation. 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. His first marriage, to Ilona Smzik, ended in divorce in 1920, reportedly because his lefty politics upset his Smzik's parents. He also made plenty of personal live appearances to promote his horror image or an accompanying film. In 1955 Bela Lugosi was in a sad state. He began his acting career in 1901 or 1902. Due to shady blacklisting among the top Hollywood studio executives, he refused to sell out or to compromise his integrity, and therefore ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood Jr..Lugosi was married to Ilona Szmik (1917 - 1920), Ilona von Montagh (? People are becoming more and more interested in Bela Lugosi because of how much money he makes. It was expected to sell for up to $2 million, but has since been listed again by Bonhams in 2018. The funeral was held on Saturday, August 18 at the Utter-McKinley funeral home in Hollywood. List of Bela Lugosi 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). 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. 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. [3] (Szmik then married wealthy Hungarian architect Imre Francsek in December 1920, moved with him to Iran in 1930, had two children, and died in 1991.)[47]. Three more parts came in 192526, including a five-month run in the comedy-fantasy The Devil in the Cheese. 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. Full Real Name. 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. [64] In 2019, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced acquisition of the cape via partial donation from the Lugosi family. [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]. He'd hoped, like his contemporary, Boris Karloff, to win the hearts and minds of not just fans but critics, too. Lugosi acted in several Hungarian plays before breaking out into his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy, in 1922. [66], Andy Warhol's 1963 silkscreen The Kiss depicts Lugosi from Dracula about to bite into the neck of co-star Helen Chandler, who played Mina Harker. 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. Everywhere Lugosi went, people saw a blood-sucking bad guy from Transylvania. Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. Lugosi played Dracula for a second and final time on film in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948), which was his last "A" movie. We hope you enjoy it! For the remainder of his life, he appeared less and less frequently in obscure, forgettable, low-budget B features. He even took top billing on films in which Lugosi was the star. Among them, English architect Christopher Wren (in 1632), French poet Arthur Rimbaud (in 1854), Kenyan strongman Jomo Kenyatta(in 1891), Sen. Wayne Morse (in in 1900), pundit Will Rogers Jr. (in 1911), columnist Art Buchwald (in 1925), baseball Hall-of-Famer trends.embed.renderExploreWidget("TIMESERIES", {"comparisonItem":[{"keyword":"Bela Lugosi","geo":"","time":"today 12-m"}],"category":0,"property":""}, {"exploreQuery":"q=Bela Lugosi&date=today 12-m","guestPath":"https://trends.google.com:443/trends/embed/"}); His Hungarian accent led to him being typecasted as a horror villain in many films. So it should come as no surprise, perhaps, that he was married not once, not twice or even three or four times, but five. Wood added what footage he had of the star and used and (unconvincing) body double. In some ways, this visit would echo the year his son, Bela Lugosi Jr., was born. [3], Lugosi married five times and had one son, Bela G. Lugosi (with his fourth wife, Lillian). 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).
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