The feature is noteworthy as being Bela Lugosi's only color film. . Or Heath Ledger as the Joker. Lugosi: His Life in Films, on Stage, and in the Hearts of Horror Lovers. He was the youngest of four children. Or Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. His professional status made him exempt from the draft, but he signed up anyway and was made a lieutenant in the 43rd Royal Hungarian Infantry. Independent producer Jack Broder took Lugosi at his word, casting him in a jungle-themed comedy, Bela Lugosi Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952), starring nightclub comedians Duke Mitchell and Jerry Lewis look-alike Sammy Petrillo, whose act closely resembled that of Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis (Martin and Lewis). ), On June 26, 1931, Lugosi became a naturalized United States citizen. Hope later gave most of Lugosi's personal belongings and memorabilia to Bela's young neighborhood friend Richard Sheffield, who gave Lugosi's duplicate Dracula cape to Bela Jr. and sold some of the other items to Forrest J. Ackerman. Exiled in Weimar-era Germany, he co-starred in at least 14 German silent films in 1920, among them Hypnose: Sklaven fremden Willens (1920), Der Januskopf (1920) and an adaptation of the Karl May novel Caravan of Death (1920). A number of factors began to work against Lugosi's career in the mid-1930s. Continue to the next page to see Bela Lugosi net worth, estimated salary and earnings. Lugosi acted in several Hungarian language plays before starring in his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy in 1922. All About Martin Landau: Death, Net Worth, Wife, Family, Brother ", "Bla Lugosi: actor, union leader, anti-fascist", Bela Lugosi premieres in Buffalo, New York, "Why Bela Lugosi remains the ultimate Dracula", "Filmography Bela Lugosi the Official Site", "Friedemann O'Brien Goldberg & Zarian Names Bela G. Lugosi Of Counsel", "Beyond Quatermass Brian Donlevy, the Good Bad Guy: A Bio-Filmography by Derek Sculthorpe", "Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, 603 P.2d 425 (Cal. Hungarian actor who was immortalized as Dracula in 1931. - ? 1979)", "Bela Lugosi's 'Dracula' Cape To Be Auctioned Off", "Bonhams: Bela Lugosi's Count Dracula cape from Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein", "Academy Museum of Motion Pictures Announces Acquisition of Bela Lugosi's Cape from Dracula", "Bela Lugosi's Screen-Worn 'Dracula' Cape Will Be on Display at the Academy Museum of Motion Pictures", Andy Warhol (19281987): The Kiss (Bela Lugosi), "Bauhaus on 'Bela Lugosi's Dead': "It was the 'Stairway To Heaven' of the 1980s", "Die Bela Lugosi Story Mller, Pter / Theobalt , Gerold / Schmidtke, Wolfgang", "Hartmut Zech Steinmetz- und Steinbildhauermeister", "A Bla Lugosi Bust Was Snuck Onto the Facade of This Budapest Castle", "Visiting the Ellis Island Immigration Museum", "Review: Can carnivore instinct be overcome in BEASTARS? [59][60] Hope died in Hawaii in 1997, at age 78, having never remarried. In this article, we covered Bela Lugosi's net worth, wiki, bio, career, height, weight, pics, family, affairs, car, salary, age, facts, and other details in 2022. Lugosi's jealousy put an end to his union with Arch, who was more than three decades his junior. 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. He wasn't Universal Pictures' first choice, though. But at the last minute, Lugosi's heavily-accented dialogue was edited out after the film was completed, along with the idea of the Monster being blind, leaving his performance featuring groping, outstretched arms and moving lips seeming enigmatic (and funny) to audiences. Producer Alex Gordon, knowing Lugosi was in dire need of cash, arranged for the actor to stand outside the theater wearing a cape and dark glasses, holding a man costumed as a gorilla on a leash. Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots. Lillian received custody of their son Bela Jr.[53] Lugosi called the police one night after Lillian left him and threatened to commit suicide, but when the police showed up at his apartment, he denied making the call. As his career faltered, Lugosi fell victim to drug addiction. They remained married until his death in 1956. 2021. Lugosi later told reporters that he had no choice but to leave his home to find a job, walking 300 miles to an industrial center where he worked as a miner. So it should come as no surprise, perhaps, that he was married not once, not twice or even three or four times, but five. Bela Lugosi | Biography, Movies, Dracula, & Facts | Britannica Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. It was expected to sell for up to $2 million, but has since been listed again by Bonhams in 2018. So, how much was Bela Lugosi networth at the age of years old? How much money is Bela Lugosi worth at the age of 140 and whats his real net worth now? Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask. 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. That honor went to Lon Cheney. 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. No Traveler Returns: The Lost Years of Bela Lugosi by Bill Kaffenberger and Gary D. Rhodes (2012). After moving to Budapest in 1911, he played dozens of roles with the National Theatre of Hungary between 191319. 1941. 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. Bela Lugosi Discusses His Drug Habit as He Leaves the Hospital in 1955 Four other silent roles followed, villains and continental types, all in productions made in the New York area. Who is Bela Lugosi Lugosi died of a heart attack on 16 August 1956, while lying on a bed in his Los Angeles apartment. [42] 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. [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]. He lost even more. [24], In 1929, with no other film roles in sight, he returned to the stage as Dracula for a short West Coast tour of the play. The combination was so successful that Umann scheduled extra shows to accommodate the capacity crowds, and invited Lugosi to appear in person, which thrilled new audiences that had never seen Lugosi's classic performance. He was buried in a Dracula costume, including a cape, but not the ones used in the 1931 film, contrary to popular--but unfounded--rumors. 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. The division's mission was to launch an attack against Russian troops in Poland. [20], His first American film role was in the silent melodrama The Silent Command (1923) which was filmed in New York. 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. Many believed, thanks to the 1994 filmEd Wood,that Lugosi went so far as to sleep in a coffin. Lillian's parents lived on one of their properties, and Lugosi frequented the health spa there. Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, emigrating by ship to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. [30] Lugosi did get a few heroic leads, as in Universal's The Black Cat after Karloff had been accorded the more colorful role of the villain, The Invisible Ray, and a romantic role in producer Sol Lesser's adventure serial The Return of Chandu (1934), but his typecasting problem appears to have been too entrenched to be alleviated by those films. In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll and Mark McDonnell. On 26 June 1931, Lugosi became a naturalized United States citizen. He was, to moviegoers and followers of 1930s Hollywood, Dracula. ", "Bela Lugosi is Dracula Again in New Comic Arriving This October", https://www.retroagogo.com/categories/collections/bela-lugosi/, Saturn Award for Best DVD or Blu-ray Collection, Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Bela_Lugosi&oldid=1152475029, Austro-Hungarian military personnel of World War I, Burials at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, Naturalized citizens of the United States, Articles with unsourced statements from December 2015, Wikipedia articles needing page number citations from October 2022, Articles needing additional references from August 2020, All articles needing additional references, Articles containing Hungarian-language text, Articles with Hungarian-language sources (hu), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 30 April 2023, at 13:16. [7], At the age of 12, Lugosi dropped out of school and left home to work at a succession of manual labor jobs. Lillian would produce Lugosi's only son, Bella Jr., five years later. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover), Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. He never got to see the finished film. On choosing the topic of the song, the band's bassist David J remarked "It's so weird you should say that, because I've got this lyric about Bela Lugosi, the actor who played a vampire. Actor: Dracula. He is 140 years old and is a Libra. [b], The cape Lugosi wore in Dracula (1931) was in the possession of his son until it was put up for auction in 2011. It was not immediately successful, though. [46], In 1933, the 51-year-old Lugosi married 22-year-old Lillian Arch (19111981), the daughter of Hungarian immigrants living in Hollywood. Bela Lugosi is American by birth. As this piece in American Ghost Stories, points out, Lugosi wasn't always truthful about his past he was prone to exaggeration, claiming in one 1941 interview to have stolen 700 hats as a young boy but his childhood was undeniably cut short by his father's death, propelling him into menial labor jobs that tested his mettle. Lillian and Bla divorced in 1953, at least partially because of Bla'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 Lillian eventually did marry Donlevy in 1966. [29][38], The Vincent Price film, House of Wax premiered in Los Angeles at the Paramount Theatre on April 16, 1953. The cape Lugosi wore in Dracula (1931) was in the possession of his family until it was put up for auction in 2011. Which makes it somewhat strange that his son, Bela Jr., and fourth wife,Lillian, made the decision to bury Lugosi in his Dracula cape. In late April of 1955 the 72-year-old actor, destitute and recently divorced from his . Historian John McElwee reports, in his 2013 book Showmen, Sell It Hot!, that Bela Lugosi's popularity received a much-needed boost in August 1938, when California theater owner Emil Umann revived Dracula and Frankenstein as a special double feature. In 1927, he starred as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel, moving with the play to the West Coast in 1928 and settling down in Hollywood. At Universal, he often received star billing for what amounted to a supporting part. Some of the sources for his net worth are his salary, movies, and other earnings. The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Bela Lugosi, The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi. His real name is Bla Ferenc Dezs? He even took top billing on films in which Lugosi was the star. BearManor Media, ISBN 1593932855, Arthur Lennig, The Immortal Count, University Press of Kentucky, 2003, 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! Instead, he was relegated to the horror genre, written off as a B-movie hack. 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. Historian John McElwee reports, in his 2013 book Showmen, Sell It Hot!, that Bela Lugosi's popularity received a much-needed boost in August 1938, when California theater owner Emil Umann revived Dracula and Frankenstein as a special double feature. Bela Lugosi - IMDb "I was dead, and he brought me back to life." Bela Lugosi Net Worth, Biography, Age, Weight, Height Prior to his death, Lugosi shot test footage of him wearing one of his Dracula capes in a graveyard. In 1998, he played Mike McDermott in John Dahl's Rounders. Following a role as a mute in "The Black Sheep" (1956), Lugosi died on Aug. 16, 1956 of a heart attack while lying on his couch in Los Angeles. The divorce became final on July 17, 1920 and was uncontested as Lugosi could not show up for the proceedings. As film offers declined, he became more and more dependent on live venues to support his family. He'd hoped, like his contemporary, Boris Karloff, to win the hearts and minds of not just fans but critics, too. "I was dead, and he brought me back to life." And, indeed, it was made into a beloved film, Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as Wood and Martin Landau as Lugosi. Not only did the role take over his life; it subsumed his very identity. Lugosi made 12 films in Hungary between 1917 and 1918 before leaving for Germany. Landau won an Oscar for his turn as the Hungarian heartthrob who'd fallen on hard times. [39], Late in his life, Bela Lugosi again received star billing in films when the ambitious but financially limited filmmaker Ed Wood, a fan of Lugosi, found him living in obscurity and near-poverty and offered him roles in his films, such as an anonymous narrator in Glen or Glenda (1953) and a mad scientist in Bride of the Monster (1955). The rumor that Lugosi was clutching the script for The Final Curtain, a planned Ed Wood project, at the time of his death is not true. Bela Lugosi, original name Blasko Bla Ferenc Dezs, (born October 20, 1882, Lugos, Hungary [now Lugoj, Romania]died August 16, 1956, Los Angeles, California, U.S.), Hungarian-born motion-picture actor who was most famous for his sinister portrayal of the elegantly mannered vampire Count Dracula. It was around this time, on January 31, 1933, that Lugosi married 21 year old Lillian Arch, and despite the almost 30 year age gap and Lugosi's previous marriage record, the pair would remain . Lugosi, the youngest of four children, was born Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask in 1882 in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania) to Hungarian father Istvn Blask, a baker who later became a banker, and Serbian-born mother Paula de Vojnich. In 1925, he appeared as an Arab Sheik in Arabesque which premiered in Buffalo, New York at the Teck Theatre before moving to Broadway. He eventually became a U.S. citizen in 1931, soon after the release of his film version of Dracula.[12][4]. ), and Lillian Arch (1933 - 1951). Bela Lugosi Net Worth Net Worth List For all time, at the moment, 2023 year, Bela Lugosi earned $96 Million. Wood plays Glen/Glenda. [72] In the Hungarian production, directed by Istvn Szab, Lugosi was played by Ivan Darvas. Lugosi's first film appearance was in the movie Az ezredes (The Colonel, 1917). So, how much is Bela Lugosi worth at the age of 74 years old? Bela Lugosi. 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. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover). He also continued to lobby for his prized role in the film version of Dracula. Also Ed Wood did not meet Lugosi in a funeral parlor, but rather through his roommate Alex Gordon. According to SyFy Wire,he learned the language bit by bit, role by role, reading his lines out loud to himself. Several more silent roles followed, villains and continental types, all in productions made in the New York area. From 1947 to 1950, he performed in summer stock, often in productions of Dracula or Arsenic and Old Lace, and during the rest of the year, made personal appearances in a touring "spook show", and on early commercial television. After moving to Budapest in 1911, he played dozens of roles with the National Theatre of Hungary between 1913 and 1919. List of Bela Lugosi 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. [48] The divorce became final in October, 1925. (At the end of the previous film in the series, The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942), Lugosi's voice had been dubbed over that of Lon Chaney Jr. since Ygor's brain was now in the Monster's skull[34].) His earliest. October 20, 2014. Who is Bela Lugosi For the remainder of his life, he appeared less and less frequently in obscure, forgettable, low-budget B features. Lugosi, who got his start acting in Shakespearean dramas in his native Hungary, was an ambitious and stately performer. 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. Much like that of the vampire he brought to life, Lugosi's story is a fascinating one, full of ups and downs and twists of fate. Regarding Son of Frankenstein, the film's director Rowland V. Lee said his crew let Lugosi "work on the characterization; the interpretation he gave us was imaginative and totally unexpected when we finished shooting, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that he stole the show. Following the collapse of Bla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic in 1919, leftists and trade unionists became vulnerable. Net Worth. Hungarian actor who was immortalized as Dracula in 1931. [26] Lugosi had played the role on Broadway,[27] and was considered before director Tod Browning cast him in the role. $4 Million. The heat clearly worked. Lugosi was born Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask on 20 October 1882, in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (modern Lugoj . The studio then rehired Lugosi to star in new films, fortunately just as Lugosi's fourth wife had given birth to a son. According to Bela G. Lugosi (his son), Forrest Ackerman, Dolores Fuller and Richard Sheffield, the film's portrayal of Lugosi is inaccurate: In real life, he never used profanity, did not hate Karloff, owned no small dogs, nor did he sleep in a coffin. Regardless, it seems safe to say that, when it came to philanthropy, Sinatra did it his way. Lugosi remained in California where he resumed his film work under contract with Fox, appearing in early talkies often as a heavy or an "exotic sheik". During these moves, Ilona lost her unborn child,[13] after which she left Lugosi and returned home to her parents where she filed for divorce, and soon after remarried. Lugosi was born Bla Ferenc Dezs Blask on October 20, 1882, in Lugos . Bela Lugosi made money by Actors niche. Hal B. Wallis, Martin and Lewis's producer, unsuccessfully sued Broder. [33] He was finally cast in the role of Frankenstein's monster for Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943). Lugosi will probably forever be remembered for playing Count Dracula in Tod Browning's 1931 film version of Bram Stoker's spooky novel. [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]. Karloff's monster was weak by comparison."[32]. 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 (? He might have been a bit blood thirsty, but he was a hero, too. Itsvan died when Bela was just 12-years-old, throwing the family fortunes into turmoil.