“I owe it all to that little man at the Regina Theatre. I was dead, and he brought me back to life.”
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Bela Lugosi
Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, better known by his stage name Bela Lugosi was a Hungarian–American actor. He was best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the horror film classic Dracula (1931), Ygor in both Son of Frankenstein (1939) and Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956.
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entertainment · Hungarian actor (1882–1956) · film actor · stage actor · trade unionist · actor · also Bela Lugosi, Lugosi
Born 20 October 1882 · Died 16 August 1956 · Q34529
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Dracula trailer (1931)
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I’ve lived here for 20 years and I have been a citizen for 10 years. I hope I am a good one. I know I don’t take it for granted. I feel I am an awfully lucky person to be an American and I think that every naturalized American and every person born in this land should kneel on his knees every morning and utter a prayer for being an American.
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2026· 3 entries
Public attention spiked: 3,379 Wikipedia readers in one day, 3.1× the usual 1,087, with 0 article edits.
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Yahoo: 1979 Rock Classic 'Bela Lugosi's Dead,' Lasting Nearly 10 Minutes, Became a Bleak Holiday Anthem
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2025· 1 entry
Forbes: Leonardo DiCaprio’s Company Helping Develop Young Bela Lugosi Biopic, Report Says
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2024· 1 entry
collider: Bela Lugosi (Kind Of) Played This Classic Disney Villain
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2023· 2 entries
Collider: Bela Lugosi Got This Early Edgar Allan Poe Film Censored
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The Cheat Sheet: 1 Movie Inspired Bauhaus’ ‘Bela Lugosi’s Dead’
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2022· 1 entry
Crux: Bela Lugosi’s life takes fictional turn in new novel with Catholic themes
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2020· 2 entries
bleedingcool: Dracula Lives Once Again with Infinite Statues Bela Lugosi Tribute
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Legendary Comics published an adaptation of Bram Stoker's 1897 Dracula novel, which used the likeness of Lugosi
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2019· 1 entry
The Academy Museum of Motion Pictures announced acquisition of the cape via partial donation from the Lugosi family, and stated that the cape would be on display beginning in 2020
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2013· 1 entry
The Hungarian electronic music band Žagar recorded a song entitled "Mr
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2003· 1 entry
German artist Hartmut Zech erected a bust of Lugosi on one of the corners of Vajdahunyad Castle in Budapest
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2001· 1 entry
BBC Radio 4 broadcast There Are Such Things by Steven McNicoll and Mark McDonnell
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1979· 1 entry
The song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" was released by UK post-punk band Bauhaus
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1966· 1 entry
(by which time he had also become an alcoholic) and she died in 1981
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1959· 1 entry
A British film called Lock Up Your Daughters, composed of clips from Lugosi's Monogram pictures from the 1940s, was theatrically released in the U
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1956· 5 entries
Died 1956-08-16.
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In the bedroom of his Los Angeles apartment while taking a nap
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Shortly after Lugosi's death
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“I’ve lived here for 20 years and I have been a citizen for 10 years. I hope I am a good one. I know I don’t take it for granted. I feel I am an awfully lucky person to be an American and I think that every naturalized American and every person born in this land should kneel on his knees every morning and utter a prayer for being an American.”
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Although they discussed divorce, they were married until Lugosi's death in 1956.
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1955· 2 entries
Lugosi stated that he was about to begin work on a new Ed Wood film called The Ghoul Goes West
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Lugosi married Hope Lininger, his fifth wife; she was 37 years his junior and had been a fan
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1951· 1 entry
While in England to play a six-month tour of Dracula, Lugosi co-starred in a lowbrow film comedy, Mother Riley Meets the Vampire (also known as Vampire Over London and My Son, the Vampire), released the following year
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1950· 1 entry
Lugosi appeared on a one-hour TV program called Murder and Bela Lugosi (broadcast by WPIX-TV on September 18, 1950) in which he was interviewed and provided commentary on his horror films
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1949· 1 entry
In a live adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado"
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1944· 1 entry
Lillian and Bela divorced on July 17, 1953, at least partially because of Bela's excessive drinking and his jealousy over Lillian's decision to take a full-time job as an assistant to actor Brian Donlevy on Donlevy's rad
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1940· 1 entry
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
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1939· 1 entry
Lugosi made a rare appearance in an A-list motion picture as a stern Soviet commissar in the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer romantic comedy Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and directed by Ernst Lubitsch
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1937· 1 entry
When Lugosi was forced to withdraw from a leading role in a serial production, The Secret of Treasure Island, due to constant back pain
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1935· 1 entry
Lugosi learned that von Montagh and a female friend had been arrested for shoplifting in New York City, which was the last he heard of her
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1933· 1 entry
The 51-year-old Lugosi married 22-year-old Lillian Arch (1911–1981), the daughter of Hungarian immigrants living in Hollywood
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1931· 2 entries
Lugosi became a naturalized United States citizen
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Soon after the release of his film version of Dracula
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1929· 3 entries
Accusing Lugosi of infidelity, citing actress Clara Bow as the "other woman", and claimed Lugosi tried to take her checkbook and the key to her safe deposit box away from her
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The divorce became official on December 9, 1929. 17 months later, Weeks died at age 34 from alcoholism in Panama, with Lugosi not receiving any money from her estate.
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With no other film roles in sight, he returned to the stage as Dracula for a short West Coast tour of the play
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1928· 2 entries
To tour in the Dracula stage play, and his Hollywood film career took off
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Lugosi decided to stay in California when the play ended its first West Coast run
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1927· 1 entry
Starred as 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
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1925· 1 entry
Played an Arab Sheik in Arabesque which premiered in Buffalo, New York at the Teck Theatre before moving to Broadway
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1924· 1 entry
Charging him with adultery and complaining that he wanted her to abandon her acting career to keep house for him
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1921· 1 entry
Met and married his second wife, Ilona von Montagh, a young Hungarian emigree and stage actress whom he had worked with years before in Europe
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1920· 2 entries
And was uncontested as Lugosi could not appear for the proceedings
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Among them Hypnose: Sklaven fremden Willens (1920), Der Januskopf (1920), and an adaptation of the Karl May novel Caravan of Death (1920)
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1919· 1 entry
Leftists and trade unionists became vulnerable, some being imprisoned or executed in public
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1911· 1 entry
Played dozens of roles with the National Theatre of Hungary between 1913 and 1919
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1903· 1 entry
To honor his birthplace, and went on to perform in Shakespearean plays
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1882· 2 entries
Born 1882-10-20.
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In Lugos, Kingdom of Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania) to Hungarian father István Blaskó, a baker who later became a banker, and Serbian mother Paula de Vojnić (Serbian: Паула де Војнић)
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