He was 48-years-old when he got the part in the iconic film, and he was already many years into his acting career. October 20, 2014. Who is Bela Lugosi His immortal role as the count led him to play roles in 1934's The Black Cat and 1935's The Raven. He later allowed himself to be photographed drinking a glass of milk at a Red Cross booth there. Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask. His wife Hope discovered him dead, on his bed dressed only in his underwear, when she came home from work that evening, he having apparently died peacefully in his sleep around 6:45 PM according to the medical examiner. His net worth is estimated at about $5 million. In 1979, the Lugosi v. Universal Pictures decision by the California Supreme Court held that Lugosi's personality rights could not pass to his heirs, as a copyright would have. As far as we know, he has never risen from it. Lugosi was proscribed from acting due to his participation in the formation of an actors' union. 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. 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. Lillian and Bela vacationed on their lakeshore property in Lake Elsinore, California (then called Elsinore), on several lots between 1944 and 1953. 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. [64] In 2019, the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced acquisition of the cape via partial donation from the Lugosi family. Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, emigrating by ship to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. Blask. The funeral was held on Saturday, August 18 at the Utter-McKinley funeral home in Hollywood. [54](Lillian eventually did marry Brian Donlevy in 1966, by which time she had also become an alcoholic and she died in 1981. Bela Lugosi Net Worth, Biography, Age, Weight, Height ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover). 70. There was a season of old horror films on TV and I was telling Daniel about how much I loved them. ), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, intending to emigrate to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. While its relatively simple to predict his income, its harder to know how much Bela has spent over the years. Bela Lugosi (born October 20, 1882) is famous for being movie actor. I was saying how Bela Lugosi was the quintessential Dracula, the elegant depiction of the character. Bela Lugosi Biography, Age, Height, Wife, Net Worth, Family pg. 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. Bela Lugosi Jr. attended the Elsinore Naval & Military School in Lake Elsinore. 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. Bela married 19-year-old Lillian Arch in 1933. [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. Bela Lugosi is an Actor, zodiac sign: Libra. That honor went to Lon Cheney. pg. Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. 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. Instead, he was relegated to the horror genre, written off as a B-movie hack. Lillian and Bela, as well as his mother, vacationed on their lake property in Lake Elsinore, California (then called Elsinore), on two lots between 1944 and 1953. Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. He didn't know a word of English at the time, but that didn't stop him from auditioning, and, two years after his arrival in the States, he was cast in the play, The Red Poppy. 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. 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 (? His first American film role was in the melodrama The Silent Command (1923). He dropped out of school when he was twelve years old, and began appearing in Shakespeare plays. Famous for his thick Hungarian accent, he dominated the screen for two decades until his death. In 1966, Bela Jr. and Lillian sued Universal Studios for using Lugosi's personality rights without his heirs' permission. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. He began his stage acting career in 1902. He was born in Lugos on 1882-10-20. According to Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra, when the entertainer heard of Lugosi's problems, he visited Lugosi at the hospital and gave him a $1,000 check. In 1917, Lugosi married Ilona Szmik (1898-1991). Lugosi enjoyed a lively career on stage, with plenty of personal appearances. Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein(1948). In some ways, this visit would echo the year his son, Bela Lugosi Jr., was born. It was his first English-speaking role. In 1998, he played Mike McDermott in John Dahl's Rounders. Think Ralph Fiennes as Voldemort, Dolph Lundgren as Ivan Drago, and Jack Nicholson as the Joker. Bela Lugosi Net Worth 2022: Money, Salary, Bio - CelebsMoney Universal took notice of the tremendous business and launched its own national re-release of the same two horror favorites. He descended into drug use and despair. 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". 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. [75], On July 19, 2003, German artist Hartmut Zech erected a bust of Lugosi on one of the corners of Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest. 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. 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 . In 1927, he got his big break. Bela's fifth wife was a fan who continuously wrote to him while he was recovering from drugs in a hospital. 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.

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