35 in October, 1958, the article drew heavily on interviews conducted with Bela and his wife Lillian by the British press upon their arrival in Southampton aboard the  S.S. Mauretania on April 10th, 1951. When his son, Bela Jr., was born in 1938, Lugosi couldn't afford to pay the hospital bill. U.S. lobby-card, best portrait  in the set with Bela Lugosi in his signature cape, about to bite the neck of a  lovely young woman. From Lugosi’s estate, and passed down to his  heir. Tell me about your writing process. Poster is unrestored, in Good to VG condition, and is from the Bela Lugosi  family collection. Oh, Eric Lindsay. Joan Winmill appeared in the role of the Mary Wells the maid for the first half of Bela Lugosi’s 1951 British revival tour of Dracula. Immediate black-out, followed by the black tabs opening to reveal the brightly lit consulting room. Geza Kende’s magnificent portrait of Bela Lugosi looks on as the actor’s body is removed from his apartment, Hope told the press, “He was terrified of death. That was the start of the journey, and discrete mingling took place as the train progressed. Among various photographs, posters and lobby cards, two were of such a personal nature that his desire to sell them seems even more surprising than his wish to sell the cape. Itsvan, a strict and conventional man, had high hopes for his son, but Bela struggled in school and, when asked what profession he hoped to pursue in the future, he answered, "highway bandit." You've got your Bette Davises vs. your Joan Crawfords, your Sarah Jessica Parkers vs. your Kim Cattralls, your Marlon Brandos vs. your Frank Sinatras. Lillian and Béla divorced in 1953,[33] at least partially because of Béla's jealousy over Lillian taking a full-time job as an assistant to Brian Donlevy on the sets and studios for Donlevy's radio and television series Dangerous Assignment[34] – Lillian eventually did marry Donlevy in 1966. Lugosi eventually grew very bitter over the fact that the general public took him for Dracula. Bela fortified Ralph, as he had Alfred Beale three months before, with few Benzedrine tablets. AB: He committed himself to cure his addiction, apparently he had been suffering from leg pains for many years. “How do you know your lines?” Bow asked him immediately. As this biography notes, he was fired from gigs roughly 20 times over the next two decades for incompetence. “All the time,” he replied. [50], Lugosi was also the subject of "Bela Lugosi's Dead", the first single by the English band Bauhaus. She left behind her life and career in England and has since devoted herself to spiritual work with the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in America. WorldCat is the world's largest library catalog, helping you find library materials online. There have, however, been actual cases of shock in the audience – but those were all elderly people. 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. AB: Did the cast ever go back to his hotel after the show? Demons of the Film Colony – When Bela Lugosi Met Boris Karloff, I Saw What I Saw When I Saw It by Frank J. Dello Stritto, Movie Action Magazine February 1936: Masters of Horror, Movie Action Magazine January 1936: The Invisible Ray Novelization, Movie Comics 1939 Adaptations of Son of Frankenstein and The Phantom Creeps. As an actor yourself, how do you appraise him as an actor? The trouble with the cast was that, after we got over the awe of being with the Dracula, our emotions swung the other way. The management will tend to oversee the casting of actors, the appointing of a director, designer etc. He descended into drug use and despair. “No!” she shouted. Though at first he was treated with benign pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. Two vintage ca. "United States Census, 1930," database with images, FamilySearch (, the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Learn how and when to remove this template message, "From the Archives: Actor Bela Lugosi, Dracula of Screen, Succumbs After Heart Attack at 73", https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:XCJB-Z61, "15 Intriguing Halloween-Related Factoids! Lillian Lugosi Donlevy oral history interview : Tape and transcript, 1976 May 20. Please see Vampire Over London: Bela Lugosi in Britain” New Expanded Second Edition for details. Lugosi's life as an actor had begun. Universal Studios paid him only $3,500 for his work on Dracula, and, as this piece in the Standard Examiner illustrates, he was always paid less than his rival, Boris Karloff, for comparable roles. They obviously didn’t have the right standards. Bela wore the heavy silver Dracula ring – a replica of the ring worn by the actual Count Dracula! The division's mission was to launch an attack against Russian troops in Poland. The Return of the Vampire original U.S. portrait  lobby-card from the Bela Lugosi family collection – (Columbia, 1943) 11 x 14 in. Everywhere Lugosi went, people saw a blood-sucking bad guy from Transylvania. Before the back-&-forth went too far, Bela entered. Lugosi was never a contender for such an award. He and I were especially friendly with Lillian. Lugosi broke into a broad Slavic smile. In an article in the online edition of The Hollywood Reporter by Gregg Kilday entitled “Why Bela Lugosi’s Family Donated Iconic Dracula Cape to Academy Museum” (posted online 7:00 AM PST 2/15/2020), Bela Lugosi’s granddaughter, Lynne Lugosi Sparks, said that the family “was actually thankful” that the cape failed to sell when pu. Actually, Bela's widow Hope and ex-wife Lillian paid it; Sinatra's only connection to the aging actor was sending him a $1000 check during his drug rehabilitation. From the estate of Bela Lugosi. For more than a year the unknown actress had one of the choicest stage roles in London. Towards the end he was very weary, but he was still afraid of death. Bela Lugosi became known as an actor the studios could get on the cheap. He arrived late, making a grand entrance, and was introduced to each of the cast. For use in the “Night on Bald Mountain” sequence of Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940), Lugosi performed in live-action reference footage for the demon Chernabog. You get many people, like Olivier or instance, who give out when they’re on, but don’t give out so much when they’re off, but he (Bela) wasn’t a nonentity off stage. Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots. Lugosi and Bow first met backstage after a performance of Dracula during its eight-week run at the Biltmore Theatre in Los Angeles sometime between June 24 and August 18th, 1928. She would sign her letters "A dash of Hope". She gave invaluable help to Sheila Wynn with her hair-do, make-up and costume. [citation needed], Lugosi's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is mentioned in "Celluloid Heroes", a song performed by The Kinks and written by their lead vocalist and principal songwriter, Ray Davies. Having not known Lugosi as well as we, the reporters were interested in whether he found the role of the vampire prince enjoyable because he shared some of the fiend’s innate wickedness. I particularly remember tulips pronounced “toolips”. With that he began operations on London’s outskirts, where the Count in black, reeking of brimstone and tombstone, claimed the blood of the living as his due. I think it was an interpretation, but to my mind, it was not definitive. He wasn't Universal Pictures' first choice, though. (Andi Brooks). RB: No, he wouldn’t. ", Bela Lugosi premieres in Buffalo, New York, "Biography (TV Series): Bela Lugosi: Hollywood's Dark Prince", "Friedemann O'Brien Goldberg & Zarian Names Bela G. Lugosi Of Counsel", "Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, 603 P.2d 425 (Cal. "I owe it all to that little man at the Regina Theatre," said Lugosi of exhibitor Umann. I have played the role of Hamlet on more than one occasion.” Lugosi, at that point, smiled proudly. Inscribed, “To the Sweetest Good Mother of  Mine,” a 1905 Hungarian portrait of Bela failed to reach its starting price of $1,000, while a 1940s portrait inscribed by Bela to his wife Lillian sold for $2,250. Lugosi as Dracula did not then dare to pretend to bite his victim’s neck, for fear of hysterical reaction from the public! As a result, it was not a great financial success, although, despite the legend, the whole cast were paid in full. Concerning the British stage version of Dracula, Lugosi explained, “We are playing it perfectly straight and it has been modernized since I played it on the American stage.”. 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. The name field is required. He reported as asked, and saw the script for the first time. Later, the emotional and physical wounds of the war — not to mention the pressures of Hollywood — caught up with him and he had a very public struggle with drug addiction.