biography
| name: |
Lugosi, Bela
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| |
originally Bela Ferenc Denzso Blasko
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pronunciation:
[lugohsee]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1884–1956)
|
| biography:
| Film actor, born in Lugos, Hungary. He studied at the Academy of Performing Arts in Budapest and played on the Hungarian stage (from 1901) and in Hungarian cinema (sometimes under the name of Arisztid Olt) from 1917. After making several films in Germany, he went to the USA (1921) and began playing character parts on stage and in films. His biggest success came in a stage play, Dracula (1927), which he repeated in the 1931 film, but this typecast him as a villain and doomed him to playing in a series of low-budget horror films that finally turned him into a parody of himself. Reduced to promoting himself by such gimmicks as giving interviews while lying in a coffin, and constantly with money or marital problems, he became a drug addict and had himself committed to the California State Hospital in 1955. He returned to make three poor films, including Plan 9 from Outer Space (1956), and when he died he was buried in his Dracula cape. |
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