bela lugosi net worth at death

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. He even took top billing on films in which Lugosi was the star. Play episode. Everywhere Lugosi went, people saw a blood-sucking bad guy from Transylvania. He was kept employed by the studios principally so that they could put his name on the posters. Financial difficulties forced him into taking roles that were beneath both his talent and pay grade. The film would be Bela Lugosi's last "A" movie. His first American film role was in the melodrama The Silent Command (1923). It was expected to sell for up to $2 million, but has since been listed again by Bonhams in 2018. Lugosi's partnership with Wood began in 1953 with the cross-dressing cult classic, Glen or Glenda, written and directed by Wood, a known transvestite. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. Bela Lugosi is a Libra and was born in The Year of the Horse. Hungarian actor who was immortalized as Dracula in 1931. The studio then rehired Lugosi to star in new films, fortunately just as Lugosi's fourth wife had given birth to a son. What's clear, though, is that Lugosi was often on the losing end of Tinsel Town's notoriously flaky attention span. As film offers declined, he became more and more dependent on live venues to support his family. The funeral was held on Saturday, August 18 at the Utter-McKinley funeral home in Hollywood. Lugosi, who got his start acting in Shakespearean dramas in his native Hungary, was an ambitious and stately performer. 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. He began his acting career in 1901 or 1902. 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. Bela Lugosi became known as an actor the studios could get on the cheap. Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. He currently resides in Lugoj, Romania. These horror, comedy and mystery B-films were mostly released by Monogram Pictures. When his son, Bela Jr., was born in 1938, Lugosi couldn't afford to pay the hospital bill. Then there was the fact that Universal Studios didn't pay him a living wage for the seven weeks he spent pouring his heart and soul into his portrayal of the bloodsucking count from Transylvania. 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. With Lugosi in his Dracula cape, Wood shot impromptu test footage, with no particular storyline in mind, in front of Tor Johnson's home, at a suburban graveyard, and in front of Lugosi's apartment building on Carlton Way. 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. In 1928, Lugosi decided to stay in California when the play ended its first West Coast run. [73][74], In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll and Mark McDonnell. Not only did the role take over his life; it subsumed his very identity. [46], In 1933, the 51-year-old Lugosi married 22-year-old Lillian Arch (19111981), the daughter of Hungarian immigrants living in Hollywood. On 16 August 1956, Bela Lugosi died of non-communicable . 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. . 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. For all time, at the moment, 2023 year, Bela Lugosi earned $96 Million. For the remainder of his life, he appeared less and less frequently in obscure, forgettable, low-budget B features. Though at first he was treated with benign pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. And, indeed, it was made into a beloved film, Ed Wood, starring Johnny Depp as Wood and Martin Landau as Lugosi. The rivalry all started, according to this piece on Bloody Disgusting, when Lugosi turned down the chance to play Frankenstein's monster in the 1931 film version of Mary Shelley's groundbreaking novel. Bela Lugosi died of a heart attack August 16, 1956. She would sign her letters "A dash of Hope". Bela's income mostly comes from and basic source was being a successful Hungarian actor (1882-1956). ? Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. He was tortured by the idea that, after his star-turn in the Dracula movie in 1931, no one saw would see him as a complicated human being or a talented, sensitive artist. 134th birthday - He'd developed the addictions over time, and, as this article in Open Culture shows, he'd grown so sick he could no longer live on his own. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover). Gone were Lugosi's middle class parents, his teenage struggles to make ends meet in the mines and rail yards of turn-of-the-century Hungary. Bela Lugosi Jr. was boarded at the Elsinore Naval and Military School in Lake Elsinore, and also lived with Lillian's parents while she and Bela were touring. Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. He died a year into their marriage of a heart attack. He lost even more. He also continued to lobby for his prized role in the film version of Dracula. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times. Bela Lugosi Net Worth. Instead, he was relegated to the horror genre, written off as a B-movie hack. [6] He was raised in a Roman Catholic family. It made the 6'1" Hungarian hunk irresistible to a series of beautiful women, including the notoriously sexy Clara Bow. On July 19, 2003, German artist Hartmut Zech erected a bust of Lugosi on one of the corners of Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest. 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. Many believed, thanks to the 1994 filmEd Wood,that Lugosi went so far as to sleep in a coffin. His legal actions in Lugosi v. Universal Pictures led to the creation of the California Celebrities Rights Act. It was, perhaps, simply the result of admiration and compassion. [4] Returning to civilian life, Lugosi became an actor in Hungarian silent films, appearing in many of them under the stage name "Arisztid Olt". Wood hired Tom Mason, his wife's chiropractor, to double for Lugosi in additional shots. October 20, 2016, 132nd birthday - She had been a fan, writing letters to him when he was in the hospital recovering from his drug addiction. Wood added what footage he had of the star and used and (unconvincing) body double. 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. Occupation: Actor. $4 Million. That honor went to Lon Cheney. [2] When appearing in Hungarian silent films, he mostly used the stage name Arisztid Olt. It turned out to be both a blessing and a curse. Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica, ostensibly aggravated by injuries received during his military service. [57], Lugosi was buried wearing one of the "Dracula" capes and his full costume as well as his Dracula ring in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California. In 2001, BBC Radio 4 broadcast There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll and Mark McDonnell. Lugosi plays a character named The Scientist who narrates the hackneyed and often embarrassing but also hilarious exploration of sex and gender identity. ? Universal took notice of the tremendous business and launched its own national re-release of the same two horror favorites. In 1921, he married Ilona von Montagh, and divorced in 1924. Bela Lugosi was a working actor when World War I broke out in Europe. [67], 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. When this proved not to be the case, according to Karloff, Lugosi settled down and they worked together amicably (though some have further commented that the English Karloff's on-set demand to break from filming for mid-afternoon tea annoyed Lugosi). He was the youngest of four children. Lugosi died of a heart attack prior to filming. ISBN 0977379817 (hardcover), Bela Lugosi: Dreams and Nightmares by Gary D. Rhodes, with Richard Sheffield, (2007) Collectables/Alpha Video Publishers. His accent, while a part of his image, limited the type of role he could play. (Lugosi learned in 1935 that von Montagh and a female friend were both arrested for shoplifting in New York City, which was the last he heard of her.)[49]. Known For: Starring in the iconic role of Count Dracula in the 1931 film Dracula. He eventually became a U.S. citizen in 1931, soon after the release of his film version of Dracula.[12][4]. After Dracula, the bulk of Lugosi's roles were in monster movies of varying degrees of ridiculousness. Born: October 20, 1882 in Lugos, Hungary. During WWI, he volunteered and was commissioned as an infantry lieutenant, and was wounded three times.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). To Lugosi's disappointment, however, his role in this film was that of a mute butler with no dialogue. At the age of 12, Lugosi dropped out of school. He was 73. Lugosi went to 20th Century-Fox for The Gorilla (1939), which had him playing straight man (a butler) to Patsy Kelly and the Ritz Brothers. Bela Lugosi Net Worth is $200,000 Bela Lugosi Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018. . Due to his activism in the actors' union in Hungary during the revolution of 1919 and his active participation in the Hungarian Soviet Republic,[11] he was forced to flee his homeland when the government changed hands, initially accompanied by his first wife Ilona Szmik. The judge sent Lugosi to a nearby hospital, where he plotted a comeback that would never materialize. In some ways, this visit would echo the year his son, Bela Lugosi Jr., was born. He also appeared in the film Prisoners (also 1929), believed lost, which was released in both a silent and partial talkie version. Rudolph Grey, Nightmare of Ecstasy: The Life and Art of Edward D. Wood, Jr. (1992). This drug dependence (and his gradually worsening alcoholism) was becoming apparent to producers, and after 1948's Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein, the offers dwindled to parts in low-budget films; some of these were directed by Ed Wood, including a brief (posthumous) appearance in Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space (1957). Or Joaquin Phoenix as the Joker. Universal took notice of the tremendous business and launched its own national re-release of the same two horror favorites. [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. For the remainder of his life he appeared less and less frequently in obscure, low-budget features.Bela Lugosi died on August 16, 1956 of a coronary occlusion at the age of 73. He was raised in a Roman Catholic family.. At the age of 12, Lugosi dropped out of school and left home to work at a succession of manual labor jobs. His earliest known performances are from provincial theatres in the 190304 season, playing small roles in several plays and operettas. He made his way to New York and was inspected by immigration officers at Ellis Island in March 1921. 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). Today is the 134thbirthday of NAME: Bela Lugosi OCCUPATION: Actor BIRTH DATE: October 20, 1882 DEATH DATE: August 16, 1956 EDUCATION: Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts PLACE OF BIRTH: Lugos, Hun, Bela Lugosi: Happy 132nd birthday - Blog - Spokane7. Bela George Lugosi (born January 5, 1938) is an American attorney and the son of actor Bla Lugosi. 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. She claimed he slapped her in the face one night because she ate a pork chop he had hidden in their refrigerator. You get the point. Currently, Bela Lugosi is 140 years, 6 months and 11 days old. Speaking of, Lugosi married Lillian Arch, his fourth wife, in 1933. Lugosi addressed his plea to be cast in non-horror roles directly to casting directors through his listing in the 1937 Players Directory, published by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, in which he (or his agent) calls the idea that he is only fit for horror films "an error.". He was born in Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary, Austria-Hungary in 1882 and died in Los Angeles, California, United States in 1956. 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. Despite the relative size of their roles, Lugosi inevitably received second billing, below Karloff. A copy sold for $798,000 at Christie's in May 2000. Lillian would produce Lugosi's only son, Bella Jr., five years later. Bela Lugosi, born on October 20, 1882, began his acting career when he was a teenager in Hungary and went on to become one of the best-known actors in the world. He also accepted the lead in an experimental, economical feature, shot in the semi-professional 16mm film format and blown up to 35mm for theatrical release, Scared to Death (produced in 1944 but not released until 1947). Lugosi was intoxicated and very ill during the film's promotional campaign and had to return to L.A. earlier than planned. Lillian and Bela vacationed on their lakeshore property in Lake Elsinore, California (then called Elsinore), on several lots between 1944 and 1953. Scared to Death is a 1947 thriller Gothic film directed by Christy Cabanne and starring Bela Lugosi. "I was dead, and he brought me back to life." Lugosi acted in several Hungarian plays before breaking out into his first English Broadway play, The Red Poppy, in 1922. Bela Lugosi Jr. attended the Elsinore Naval & Military School in Lake Elsinore. [18] Three more parts came in 192526, including a five-month run in the comedy-fantasy The Devil in the Cheese. p. 203. 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. The couple divorced in 1920, reputedly over political differences with her parents. Incidentally, Lugosi persuaded Bow to pose nude for a portrait artist friend of his, and, as this article on Nitrateville reveals, he happily hung the painting in his many homes, over the possible objections of Mrs. Lugosi Number Four and Five. [46] The couple divorced after Lugosi was forced to flee his homeland for political reasons (risking execution if he stayed) and Ilona did not wish to leave her parents. Lugosi's life as an actor had begun. 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. When appearing in Hungarian silent films, he used the stage name Arisztid Olt. Bud Abbott Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein(1948).

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