 If my accent betrayed my foreign birth, it also stamped me as an enemy, in the imagination of the producers. In making theories, always keep a window open so that you can throw one out if necessary.
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My body grew hot, then cold. I tried to eat the bed sheets. My heart beat madly. Every joint in my body ached. When I took the cure they took it all away from me.
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The actor depends wholly on himself. He gives his performance in what, to him, seems the most effective manner.
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In Hungary acting is a profession. In America it is a decision.
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People, chained by monotony, afraid to think, clinging to certainties... they live like ants.
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You can`t make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek.
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Martyrdom was the price of enthusiasm for acting.
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Of all the roles I`ve done on the stage, I`m partial to Cyrano de Bergerac.
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I`ll take any story if it`s good.
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The stage is near and dear to me.
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Every actor is somewhat mad, or else he`d be a plumber or a bookkeeper or a salesman.
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I never play without my cape.
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There was no male vampire type in existence. Someone suggested an actor of the Continental School who could play any type, and mentioned me.
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I guess I`m pretty much of a lone wolf. I don`t say I don`t like people at all, but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds.
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It took me years to live down Dracula and convince the film producers that I would play almost any other type of role.
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When a film company is in the red they come to me. Always it is the same.
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The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking.
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In Hungary, acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly as one studies for a degree in medicine, law, or philosophy.
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I am Count Dracula!
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To win a woman, take her with you to see Dracula.
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It took several years of hard work in small roles before I attained stardom.
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I`ve been using narcotics for 20 years.
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It was hell to go through what I went through. I didn`t know I had so many friends. Many people gave a damn about my situation. They helped cure me.
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I have played Dracula a thousand times on stage and I find I have become thoroughly settled in the technique of the stage and not of the screen.
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The vampire was a complete change from the usual romantic characters I was playing, but it was a success.
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Without movie parts I was reduced to freak status. I just couldn`t stand it.
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Women have a predestination to suffering.
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If you are not serious, people will sense it.
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To portray a maniac offers a compelling challenge.
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I don`t have a dime left. I am dependent on my friends for food and a small old-age pension.
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Death, the final, triumphant lover.
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I have lived too completely, I think. I have known every human emotion.
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I look in the mirror and say to myself, Can it be you once played Romeo?
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The love-bite, it is the beginning. You will be irresistible.
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In the studio the director controls the actor`s every move, every inflection, every expression.
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My close-up was magnificent!
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I enjoy my work. I haven`t been an actor for 30 years without getting pleasure out of the profession.
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It is women who bear the race in bloody agony. Suffering is a kind of horror. Blood is a kind of horror. Women are born with horror in their very bloodstream. It is a biological thing.
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A screen actor is compensated in the knowledge that millions will see his performance at one time, where only hundreds will see it on the stage.
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I studied at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts for four years and emerged with a degree.
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Actors were exploited no less by the capitalist managers than they were by the state.
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The role seemed to demand that I keep myself worked up to fever pitch, so I took on the actual attributes of the horrible vampire, Dracula.
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I have never met a vampire personally, but I don`t know what might happen tomorrow.
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It is women who love horror. Gloat over it. Feed on it. Are nourished by it. Shudder and cling and cry out-and come back for more.
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Because of my language and the pantomime with which most Europeans accompany their speech, I was catalogued as a heavy.
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The former ruling class kept the community of actors in ignorance by means of various lies.
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[on playing Dracula] It`s a living, but it`s also a curse. It`s Dracula`s curse.
Every actor`s greatest ambition is to create his own, definite and original role, a character with which he will always be identified. In my case, that role was Dracula.
In Hungary acting is a career for which one fits himself as earnestly and studiously as one studies for a degree in medicine, law or philosophy. In Hungary, acting is a profession.
[on being typecast in villain roles] I find that, because of my language and gestures, that I am cataloged as what you call a heavy. My accent stamped me, in the imagination of the producers, as an enemy. Therefore I must be a heavy.
I`ll be truthful. The weekly paycheck is the most important thing to me.
I`d like to quit the supernatural roles and play just an interesting, down-to-earth person.
Every producer in Hollywood had set me down as a type. I was both amused and disappointed.
Circumstances made me the theatrical personality I am, which many people believe is also a part of my personal life.
[to director Edward D. Wood Jr., on the set of one of his legendary turkeys] This is the most uncomfortable coffin I`ve ever been in.
I guess I`m pretty much of a lone wolf. I don`t say I don`t like people at all but, to tell you the truth, I only like it then if I have a chance to look deep into their hearts and their minds"
Trivia
Further immortalized in the song "Bela Lugosi's Dead" by Bauhaus, which was featured in The Hunger (1983), and went on to become a dancefloor mainstay at goth dance clubs in the 1980s. The lyrics of the song described him in his Dracula costume, along with "Undead! Undead! Undead!" being chanted during the song's chorus.
(imdb.com)
He received "only" $500 per week for the seven-week engagement on "Dracula," a total of $3500. However, in 2007 purchasing power, that would be equal to $47,319. In comparison, Universal paid $2000 per week for the use of leading man David Manners, but Manners was a contract player at First National Pictures. The payment went to that studio, not to Manners, who was paid only his usual weekly rate from First National.
(imdb.com)
Lugosi himself perpetrated the myth that he had quit the role of the monster in Frankenstein (1931), which is untrue. Originally, director Robert Florey wanted him to play Dr. Frankenstein, but producer Carl Laemmle Jr. didn't want Lugosi in that role, so he was relocated to the monster part. Lugosi was unhappy with playing the clodding, mute monster under heavy make-up and complained. He had filmed some screen-tests with Florey, but Laemmle Jr. didn't like what he saw and fired both Florey and Lugosi.
(imdb.com)
His performance in Tod Browning's Dracula (1931)created such a sensation that he reportedly received more fan mail from females than even Clark Gable.
(imdb.com)
He still spoke very little English by the time he shot Dracula (1931), He had made the role famous on Broadway, but most of his lines he had learned phonetically, and used the same technique for the film version. It was another two years after he shot "Dracula" before he became fluent in English, although he had made several films after that one.
(imdb.com)
Contrary to popular belief, he and Boris Karloff did not hate each other, as the famous scene from Ed Wood (1994) would lead one to believe. Both men's children have said that the only rivalry that existed between them is when they were both up for the same parts, and in reality, Lugosi and Karloff had almost no relationship off-set. However, near the sad end of his life, Lugosi allegedly had at least one methadone-addled fantasy that Karloff was a boogie man out to get him.
(imdb.com)
His name had become such as asset that various studios would give him prominent billing even when he was playing such supporting roles as butlers as he did in Columbia's Night of Terror (1933), Fox's The Gorilla (1939), Universal's Night Monster (1942) and Paramount's One Body Too Many (1944).
(imdb.com)
Attained the rank of an Infantry Captain in the Hungarian army in World War I. Later recounted in stories on film sets, his duties include acting as a hangman. He also said that at one point he hid in a mass grave of corpses to escape death. After being wounded three times, he was discharged while apparently feigning concussion-caused insanity.
(imdb.com)
He received "only" $500 per week for the seven-week engagement on "Dracula," a total of $3500. However, in 2007 purchasing power, that would be equal to $47,319. In comparison, Universal paid $2000 per week for the use of leading man David Manners, but Manners was a contract player at First National Pictures.
(imdb.com)
In his collaborations with Boris Karloff at Universal, it was Karloff who always got top billing. When these same films were released as part of a DVD box set in 2005, Universal chose to market them as "The Bela Lugosi Collection.".
(imdb.com)
Is portrayed by Martin Landau in Ed Wood (1994)
(imdb.com)
His performance in Tod Browning`s Dracula (1931) created such a sensation that he reportedly received more fan mail from females than even Clark Gable.
(imdb.com)
His Los Angeles home was purchased by Johnny Depp, the actor who portrayed his friend Edward D. Wood Jr. in the film Ed Wood (1994).
(imdb.com)
He performed in live-action reference footage for the "Night on Bald Mountain" sequence of Walt Disney`s Fantasia (1940). He was, of course, the demon.
(imdb.com)
At the time of his death, Lugosi was in such poor financial straits that Frank Sinatra quietly paid for his funeral.
(imdb.com)
His first stage role in the US was "The Red Poppy". Unable to speak English, he was forced to learn the role by rote. He was rewarded with excellent reviews and earned his first US film role, a villainous part in The Silent Command (1923) as a result.
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Long, extensive classical career in Hungary including roles in "Hamlet", "Macbeth", "King Lear", "Taming of the Shrew" and "Richard III".
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Pictured on one of a set of five 32˘ US commemorative postage stamps, issued 30 September 1997, celebrating "Famous Movie Monsters". He is shown as the title character in Dracula (1931). Other actors honored in this set of stamps, and the classic monsters they portray, are Lon Chaney as The Phantom of the Opera (1925); Lon Chaney Jr. as The Wolf Man (1941); and Boris Karloff on two stamps as The Mummy (1932) and the monster in Frankenstein (1931).
(imdb.com)
In 1929, he married a wealthy San Francisco widow named Beatrice Weeks, a union which lasted all of three days; their divorce named Clara Bow as the "other woman" - it was a media sensation and launched him into national notoriety.
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He was one of the charter members of the Screen Actors Guild.
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On the set, he camouflaged his drug addiction by sipping burgundy.
(imdb.com)
Were it not for his death, Lon Chaney, rather than Lugosi, would have been the director Tod Browning`s choice for the starring role in Dracula (1931).
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Interred at Holy Cross Cemetery, Culver City, California, USA. Specific Interment Location: Grotto, L120, 1.
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His son, Bela Lugosi Jr., practices law in Los Angeles, California (1995).
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Father was a banker.
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Born in Lugos, Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), from which he derived his eventual professional surname.
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Married 5 times.
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