Béla Lugosi

Although you will read on the Fount of All Knowledge (i. e., the Internet) that we are now in the Golden Age of Horror Films that is demonstrably bullshine, horse hockey, and poppycock. It takes more than latex prosthetics and cheesy computer graphics to make a Golden Age.

No, the real Golden Age of Horror Films was from 1930 to 1945. Within that span we had the The Mummy, Frankenstein, and The Wolfman.

Oh yes, we also had Dracula. And you can't think of Dracula without thinking about Béla Lugosi.

Béla was born Béla Ferenc Dezsó Blaskó in 1882 in what was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire which was (as seems obvious) an empire that encompassed what is now Austria and Hungary. But it also included Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic, and parts of the Ukraine, Poland, and Northern Italy. Béla was born in what is now Romania.

Lugosi was not a stage name. Instead, Béla assumed the name Lugossy and later modified it to Lugosi. Although Béla would later tell of hailing from Transylvania, his hometown of Lugos - note the similarity in the names - is about 50 to 100 miles to the west. The uncertainty in the distance is because Transylvania is a historical region and not a political entity.

The name Lugossy means "of Lugos" much as the nickname "von Hohenheim" means "from Hohenheim". And like the German equivalent, "Lugossy" is a name indicating the nobility. Alas, there is no indication that Béla was of any noble lineage - not even if the world "nobility" has any real meaning.

However, Béla did grow up in a comfortable middle class family. His dad was a master baker and later helped established a bank. Although Béla enrolled in the local gymnasium (pronounced "gim-NAHS-ee-um") - an advanced high school - he wasn't a particularly good student. He left before graduating and later went to an industrial school to learn locksmithing.

But what Béla really liked was acting. In a day when passive entertainment was going to a live theater, attending a concert, or watching a sporting event, performance groups were common even in small towns. Joining a troop or stock company was fairly simple to do, particularly as we read for Béla, you have a family connection to help land you the job.

Béla probably started acting around 1901. He didn't just act but also appeared in musical performances where he exhibited his deep resonant baritone. Although he had no real training as an actor, he possessed real talent. Within ten years he had acquired a national reputation and was appearing in the Hungarian National Theater. Among his specialties was Shakespeare. Yes, Shakespeare is popular in many languages although we hear you lose something in the translations.

Two things of note happened in 1917. First, Béla married his first wife, Ilona Szmik. Called by her friends "Baby" her dad was a bank executive in Budapest. Getting hitched to Ilona was the first of Béla's five marriages.

Next, it was also in 1917 that Béla began appearing in films. His first film was The Leopard where he was credited as either Arisztid Olt or Olt Arisztid depending on your source.

Oh, yes. In 1917 there was a war on - World War I, that is. Unfortunately (for Béla) the Austro-Hungarian Empire was on the - quote - "wrong side" - unquote - of the war along with Germany and Turkey. After the Armistice Béla moved to Vienna.

Well, he didn't actually move there. Instead he had to "git". It seems that as a young man Béla had become enthusiastic about what is now called "leftist" politics. But after the Austro-Hungarian Empire was carved up by the terms of the Armistice, the new government didn't care for starry eyed goody-two shoes share-and-share-alike philosophies or their advocates..

Alas, Béla found that Vienna, although more open to variant politics, wasn't that great for actors. So he moved on to Germany while Ilona returned to Budapest.

After a brief flurry of simultaneous and short-lived revolutions, Germany had managed to establish the Weimar Republic in 1919. The Weimar Constitution established a fully democratic government but had the flaw that the parliament - the Reichstag - could enact "emergency measures" effectively canceling the democracy. This it did in 1933 but that's another story.

But for now Germany was no great shakes either. Times were tough, and so Béla started looking for better venues for an established Romanian actor. The obvious answer was the country that had fared pretty well after the peace talks and was gearing up to be the Land of Opportunity. The United States was also welcoming immigrants from all walks of life, and so in 1920 Béla left Europe and landed in America.

Béla quickly found work as an actor and began touring in theatrical companies. He also continued to appear in films. Despite - or perhaps because of - his Romanian accent, he made a distinctive stage presence, and he continued to garner good reviews. His first appearance on Broadway was 1925.

The novel Dracula was written by Bram Stoker, a London theatrical manager. Written in the form of diary entries, upon its publication in 1897 it was immediately popular. Almost as soon as the book was issued, Bram himself had arranged the first stage version which was actually more a dramatic reading.

Then in 1927, the American publisher and impresario Horace Liveright had decided to produce his own stage adaptation. He selected Béla for the lead. The play was a hit.

So it was inevitable that in 1931 when producer and director Tod Browning decided to make a cinema version that there was only one real choice for the lead. Again the production was a hit. That opened the floodgates and to date there have been over 70 actors playing Dracula in films alone. As a character the count has appeared in hundreds of films, television shows, radio programs, and plays.

With all respect to Robert Reed, Udo Kier, Geordie Johnson, Paul Askonas, Ferdy Mayne, Zandor Vorkov, Michael R. Thomas, Duncan Regehr, Frank Langella, Mitch Powell, Henry Polic, Tony Clay, Richard Roxburgh, George Hamilton, Joe Spinell, Daniele Liotti, Max Schreck, Christopher Bernau, Marc Warren, David Niven, Judd Hirsch, Dennis Christopher, Jonathan Rhys Meyers, Patrick Bergin, John Forbes-Robertson, Leslie Nielsen, Stuart Rigby, John Caraccioli, Lon Chaney Jr., Dan Meaden, Langley Kirkwood, Rudolf Martin, Alexander D'Arcy, Anthony Crivello, Carlos Villarías, Dick Shawn, Gianni Garko, Rutger Hauer, Keith-Lee Castle, Narciso Ibáñez Menta, Phil Fondacaro, Louis Jourdan, John Carradine, Atif Kaptan, Miles O'Keeffe, William Smith, Paul Naschy, Stephen Boyd, Aldo Monti, Gary Oldman, Vince Kelley, Thomas Kretschmann, Edmund Purdom, Michael Pataki, Hal Handerson, Howard Vernon, Stephen Billington, Anthony Georghiou, Charles Macaulay, Luke Evans, Norman Welsh, Francis Lederer, Peter Loewy, Denholm Elliott, David Peel, David Markwart, Brendan Hughes, Des Roberts, Gerard Butler, Klaus Kinski, Michael Nouri, Jack Palance, and Christopher Lee, everyone knows the best Dracula was Béla.

It's an old story but with such a hit, Béla found himself typecast. Although he did appear in other roles, they were almost always as creepy bad guys. His last film as Dracula was in 1948 where he appeared with Abbott and Costello in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein.

Béla's later years were also plagued by drug addiction from the morphine he used to combat pain. His roles became reduced to sub-B movies, most famously those of Hollywood filmmaker Ed Wood. Béla married his fifth wife in 1955 and died the next year.

OK. Now the question.

Was there a REAL Dracula?

In the sense that there was a real vampire, an undead being who could transform into a bat and fly around looking for the blood of the living, the answer is no. Despite the increasing credulity of the populace who don't understand that screenwriters make up a lot of stuff, such beings do not exist.

There was, though, a medieval Romanian family named Vlad. They were of the nobility of the Wallachia region. It's the third Vlad that is usually equated with Dracula.

The Vlads got the name Dracula when King Sigismund of Hungary made Vlad III's dad, Vlad II, a member of the Order of the Dragon. In the Old Romanian language, "dragon" is "drac". So Vlad III became the "Son of the Dragon", or Drăculea which naturally morphed into Dracula.

Vlad III developed a reputation for cruelty. The story is that he would impale his enemies on sharpened stakes and so acquired the monicker, "Vlad the Impaler". We needn't mention that it was Vlad's detractors that told the story.

Whether Bram was thinking about Vlad when he wrote Dracula has been a subject of long speculation. Some say he didn't know about Vlad and he just came across the word "Dracula" when reading about Wallachia. What caused the confusion is that the notes that Bram made when writing the novel disappeared from 1912 and only showed up in Philadelphia sixty years later. In his notes Bram wrote that "dracula" means "devil". So maybe he just thought it was a good name for a villain.

But Vlad's champions disagree. Not only could you not read about Wallachia without reading about the Vlads in general and Vlad III in particular, they point out that in the novel the vampire hunter Van Helsing, in giving one of his typically long-winded speeches, says of the count:

He must, indeed, have been that Voivode [Count] Dracula who won his name against the Turk, over the great river on the very frontier of Turkey-land.

Now in 1462 Vlad did indeed lead an army across the Danube into Turkish territory (then the Ottoman Empire). And he won a major battle. There is really no person other than Vlad III who used the name Dracula and made such a military exploit.

The best evidence, then, is that Bram Stoker did intend the Count Dracula of the novel to be the undead Vlad the Impaler. We then surmise the story is that since the middle ages, Vlad had been spending his time seeking out his victims.

References

The Immortal Count: The Life and Films of Bela Lugosi, Arthur Lennig, University Press of Kentucky, 2003, 2010

"Bela Lugosi: Actor(1882-1956)", Biography.

"Bela Lugosi", Internet Movie Data Base.

"Actors Who Have Played Dracula", Internet Movie Data Base.

"Austria-Hungary", Encyclopedia Britannica.

Dracula, Bram Stoker, Archibald Constable and Company (London), Grosset and Dunlap (New York), 1897.

"Dracula", Bela Lugosi (Actor), Tod Browning (Director), Universal Pictures, 1931, Internet Movie Data Base.

"The Leopard", Bela Lugosi (as Olt Arisztid), Starfilm, Internet Movie Data Base, 1918.

The Real Dracula: Vlad the Impaler, Marc Lallanilla, Live Science, 2017.

"No, Bram Stoker Did Not Model Dracula On Vlad The Impaler", Lauren Davis, io9, 2014.

Dracula, Prince of Many Faces: His Life and His Times, Radu Florescu and Raymond McNally, Hachett, 1989.