Bela Lugosi

In November 2015 his personal cane featured in his infamous scene in Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957) sold at Bonhams and Butterfields for $10,000. This cane is considered one of the only remaining props from the film.

In his collaborations with Boris Karloff at Universal, it was Karloff who always got top billing. When these same films were released as part of a DVD box set in 2005, Universal wisely chose to market them as "The Bela Lugosi Collection", the most popular---and therefore more bankable---star of the two.

Pictured on one of a set of five 32¢ US commemorative postage stamps, issued 9/30/1997, celebrating "Famous Movie Monsters". He is shown as the title character in Dracula (1931). Other actors honored in this set of stamps, and the classic monsters they portray, are Lon Chaney as Phantom Of The Opera (1925); Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man (1941); and Boris Karloff on two stamps as The Mummy (1932) and the monster in Frankenstein (1931).

As of 1995 his son, Bela Lugosi Jr., practices law in Los Angeles, CA.

Contrary to popular belief, he and Boris Karloff did not hate each other, as the famous scene from Ed Wood (1994) would lead one to believe. Both men's children have said that the only rivalry that existed between them is when they were both up for the same roles, and in reality, although Lugosi and Karloff had almost no relationship off-set, they were reportedly amicable whenever working together.

At the end of the Sledge Hammer! (1986) episode Sledge Hammer!: The Last of the Red Hot Vampires (1987) there is a dedication "In Memory of Mr. Blasko", Lugosi's birth name.

Further immortalized in the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus, which was featured in The Hunger (1983) and went on to become a dance mainstay at goth dance clubs in the 1980s. The lyrics of the song described him in his Dracula costume, along with "Undead! Undead! Undead!" being chanted during the song's chorus.

Is referenced in The Kinks 1972 song "Celluloid Heroes", with the lines "Avoid stepping on Bela Lugosi, because he's liable to turn and bite.".

Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956.

Appeared with Lon Chaney Jr. in five films: The Wolf Man (1941), The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948) and The Black Sleep (1956).

He performed in live-action reference footage for the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence of Walt Disney's Fantasia (1940). He was, of course, the terrifying demon Chernabog.

(1938). Lugosi helped organize the Screen Actors Guild in the mid-'30s, joining as member number 28.

He was contracted to appear in Dracula's Daughter (1936) at a salary of $4,000, but the original script in which the character appeared was rejected by Universal. The final script did not involve Dracula, except for an insert shot of him in his coffin, but Lugosi was paid off, earning $500 more for not appearing in that film than he earned for starring in Dracula (1931).

Appeared with Boris Karloff in eight films: The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), The Invisible Ray (1936), Son of Frankenstein (1939), You'll Find Out (1940), Black Friday (1940) The Body Snatcher (1945) and Gift of Gab (1934).

His name had become such as asset that studios would give him prominent billing even when he was playing such supporting roles as butlers, as he did in Columbia's Night of Terror (1933), Fox's The Gorilla (1939), Universal's Night Monster (1942) and Paramount's One Body Too Many (1944).

Wore a tuxedo in nearly every film he ever made, except for the ones where he played beasts or monsters, such as Island of Lost Souls (1932), Son of Frankenstein (1939) and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943).

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.

Also in 1931, he became a U. S. citizen. Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he had been blacklisted by the main studios and had no choice but to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row films. 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. .

Owned a large, framed, portrait he had commissioned of himself in the 1930s. He is depicted as standing in a gray suit, one hand upon his hip, the other holding his coat and hat. This painting hung in his home until the day he died. It is now owned by Metallica's lead guitarist, Kirk Hammett, a hardcore horror movie fan and horror memorabilia collector.

In 1929 he married a wealthy San Francisco widow named Beatrice Weeks, a union that lasted all of three days; their divorce named Clara Bow as the "other woman"--it was a media sensation and launched him into national notoriety.

Before his success in Tod Browning, he had already portrayed "Dracula" on Broadway, starting in 1927. Lon Chaney was originally chosen for the title role, but with his unexpected death, the search for a new Dracula started. Lugosi campaigned hard for the part, and thus won the role that made him a silver-screen horror legend.

Although he expressed interest in playing a romantic lead as he had in Hungary, he rarely got to share a kiss with a female co-star, during his entire Hollywood career. In The Midnight Girl (1925) and in Daughters Who Pay (1925), his "bad guy" characters kiss the ladies forcibly. It isn't until The Return of Chandu (1934) that he shares a split-second peck in a romantic scene with the princess character at the end of the serial.

His first stage role in the US was "The Red Poppy". Unable to speak English, he was forced to learn the role by rote. He was rewarded with excellent reviews and earned his first American film role, a villainous part in The Silent Command (1923).

In 1920 he emigrated to the US and made a living as a character actor, shooting to fame when he played Count Dracula in the legendary 1927 Broadway stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel.

Lugosi was married to Ilona Szmik (1917 - 1920), Ilona von Montagh (? - ?), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). He is the father of Bela Lugosi Jr.

A distinguished stage actor in his native Hungary, Austria-Hungary, he began his stage career in 1901 and started appearing in films during World War I, fleeing to Germany in 1919 as a result of his left-wing political activity (he organized an actors' union).

Bela Lugosi was born Béla Ferenc Dezsö Blaskó on October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blaskó, a banker. He was the youngest of four children. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times.