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Hungary's Contribution
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BELA LUGOSI was born in Lugos Hungary on 20 OCT 1882. After immigrating to the United States in 1921, he starred in a Broadway version of Dracula. He was a big success in this role, and eventually went on to the movies. |
In 1931, he acted in Tod Browning's ``Dracula.'' This was his greatest acting success-- after this, his career and life took a downhill dive. |
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In the late 1930's he became addicted to morphine and methadone, and acted in `B' films the rest of his life. He died in 1956 during the filming of ``Plan 9 from Outer Space,'' one of the worst sci-fi movies of all time. He was buried in his Dracula cape. |
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Although Lugosi failed to rise from the dead like his Transylvanian counterpart, he will always be remembered as ``Dracula.'' In those days, a movie relied upon the actors to convey terror, not the special effects co-ordinator. Lugosi did an excellent job of this, portraying an evil vampire as both a gentleman and a monster. Despite the dozens of vampire movies which have followed, and the numerous attempts at re-making ``Dracula,'' they have all failed to measure up to Lugosi's count. |
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