Talk:Bela Lugosi

"There he rose to the rank of captain in the ski patrol and was awarded a medal equivalent to the Purple Heart for being wounded at the Russian front."

Why cant the name of the medal be named? Why does it need to be compared with an American military medal? It would be much more logical to write 'He received xxxxx medal for being wounded in action' —Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.1.180.219 (talk) 13:28, 10 October 2009 (UTC)Reply

The second paragraph of the "Typecasting" section is a mess. It seems to simultaneously suggest that he was both interested and not interested in the role of Frankenstein's monster. It dismisses the legend that he turned it down, then claims that "despite not being interested" he was replaced. Which is it? Was he not interested or was he replaced? If the truth is some mixture of each (i.e. he was interested in appearing in the film but not playing that particular part or that he thought badly of the role but was willing to play it anyway) then the paragraph needs to be more clear about how. It then ends by contradicting itself with evidence that he was in fact happy with the role of the monster. I've a mind to delete the whole section.

For reference purposes re Lugosi's claims he was fleeing the Nazis in a 1940s interview:

sjc I might be wrong about the fact that Bela Lugosi left AS the Naxis were invading, but I know he did fear the Nazi presence in Europe. He spoke of this in an interview he gave in the 1940s. He mentioned this as one of the reasons he wanted to leave Europe, before things got worse. My husband owns all of his movies and is so into Bela it is scary! (Scarier than Bela's movies I'm afraid, LOL!) I will check my facts again since it has been a while since I viewed the interview. (Yes, we own this too!) Luckymama

I read this interview too. I always discounted the "scared of the Nazis" premise on a number of grounds, mainly that he was a bit of a careerist. I would take 99% of what Lugosi says with more than an ample pinch of salt. He had settled and appeared in his first American film in 1923, long before even the first Munich putsch. user:sjc

Truth. Bela was a actor through and through and very much the showman. I will conceed this one. I always wondered about this statement because the dates didn't make much sense. I know that some in the European intellectual community (ie: scientists, university personel, the artistic communities) seemed to get wind of what was happening in Germany with the Nazi movement long before they posed a real threat to the whole of Europe, and left. I guess I just took Bela's statements on the subject as one of those who saw it coming and fled before it really started. You are probably correct in your assessment of Bela's bravado, though. He did do these interviews during WWII so I can see him wanting to enhance his stature by claiming he saw it coming too.Luckymama

A little historical perspective might be helpful here. First, bear in mind that the fascist takeover in Italy took place in the early twenties and during WWII there was no real distinction drawn between Nazism and Fascism generally. Second, Bela had to flee Hungary following the collapse of the Hungarian Soviet under Bela Kun because his union activities typed him as a leftist in the politics of that time. Third, left wing political thought at the time lumped all counter revolutionary political and military movements together with Fascism as part of a general reactionary upsurge.

Assuming that Bela's political outlook hadn't fundamentally changed, it's entirely likely that he saw no distinction to be made between the Nazis, Fascists and the political forces that proscribed him in Hungary. Bela's remarks might be better understood as saying that the forces that drove him from Hungary were socially and politically identical to those in power in Nazi Germany. This interpretation is buttressed by the fact that the Hungarian regime was the ally of Nazi Germany during WWII. WB Reeves —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.90.229.177 (talk) 17:29, 1 November 2007 (UTC)Reply

Category:Romanian actors?

I corrected it.

Well, if Austria-Hungary makes someone Romanian then probably the Dalai Lama is Romanian as well. :) I mean, um, he was Hungarian when he was born and while he was alive. I don't think someone changes nationality because the birthplace got annected to another country.

Annected!! What a great new word. Thanks. JackofOz 12:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

He means 'annexed', of course. CFLeon 21:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

(I fear the moment when someone conjures that he was really called Bel Lugescu or something.) --grin ✎ 12:09, 2004 Jun 29 (UTC)

Actually his family name was "Blasko". (derived from Slavic Vlasko=Vlach)  :-) Bogdan | Talk 14:02, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Heh, I had a similar problem with an an article on an economist (I forget who now). He was described as an "Austrian economist" although he was a Jew born in what's now Lithuania and who moved to the United States as an adolescent—presumably because the area was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire when he was born (or maybe it was just that somebody figured he was an economist from Europe, therefore he must be Austrian). —Chowbok ☠ 23:33, 14 December 2006 (UTC)Reply

Isn't it possible that he was an Austrian School economist? --Orange Mike | Talk 19:07, 29 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

Especially as Lithuania was never part of the Austro-hungarian empire...122.61.157.138 (talk) 09:48, 23 June 2013 (UTC)Reply

The article states that: "The pseudo-biographical film Ed Wood, by Tim Burton, depicted Wood's relationship with Lugosi inaccurately." A quick summary of these inaccuracies would be helpful here, as it's impossible to tell from this article.  :)

This doesn't sound right: The "double" can easily be spotted by the fact that he looks nothing like Lugosi and covers his face with his cape in every shot.

If the actor's face was covered in every scene, how can we tell whether it's Lugosi or not? was it his shape or height that gave the game away? JackofOz 12:49, 5 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

He's about twice as tall as Lugosi. Really, you can tell. The Singing Badger 15:22, 5 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

Lugosi was tall himself, over 6 feet. He was typically the tallest player in any scene. — Walloon 16:10, 5 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

So ... the double was about 12 feet tall? JackofOz 09:20, 18 April 2006 (UTC)Reply

The double's movements ("body language") and his hair, brow and eyes are different from the footage of Lugosi included in the film. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:07, 16 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

Didn't Bela do a cameo in the Wolfman, as the original cursed creature who Bites the main character. (The name slips my mind.) I believe he was the husband of the gypsy woman. That's not in here, and I know he's in it cuz i work at a video store and the cover of the dvd says "WITH BELA LUGOSI!"

Correct, although he's called her son (more appropriate with the apparent ages). The character is named 'Bela' in the credits. CFLeon 21:36, 26 March 2007 (UTC)Reply

If the birth dates here are correct, Lugosi was just six years younger than his screen mother (Maria Ouspenskaya)! WHPratt (talk) 18:17, 4 August 2010 (UTC)Reply

Bela's role was not a "cameo," it was a featured role and he received full billing. If the DVD stated "With Bela Lugosi," then it's certainly not "a cameo." By the way, there is no word in the English language as "cuz." (Sellpink (talk) 21:09, 8 August 2013 (UTC))Reply

While watching an episode of Sledge Hammer, I discovered that one of the episodes was made about an ageing actor who resented being typecase as a vampire. At the end, there was a title card that said "In the memory of Mr. Blaskó". Mushrom 01:19, 15 January 2007 (UTC)Reply

Is there any evidence that he had any?

I've tagged that sentence as "dubious", mainly because I just read this paragraph in our own article about the 1931 film of Dracula:

The eerie speech pattern of Lugosi's "Dracula" was said to have resulted from the fact that Lugosi did not speak English, and therefore had to learn and speak his lines phonetically. This is a bit of an urban legend. While it is true that Lugosi did not speak English at the time of his first English-language play in 1919, and he had learned his lines to that play in this manner. By the time of his filming this role, Lugosi spoke English as well as he ever would.

Something needs to be cleared up here, either he spoke English or he didn't...K. Lásztocska 16:25, 2 June 2007 (UTC)Reply

From the little I've learned from various accounts, his portrayal in the 1931 film was mostly done phonetically. He was learning English at the time but wasn't in full control of the language when he made the movie. By the mid-30s, his English was considerably better, although he still spoke with a Hungarian accent. That's why some feel his portrayal of Dracula in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein is "better" than in 1931, because it was more natural sounding. But then again, others feel the 1931 portrayal made Dracula more "supernatural" or otherworldly. It just depended on the writer or critic's opinion.MARK VENTURE (talk) 16:54, 10 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

Apparently there were 8 movies to star both Messrs Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. This was mentioned in the The Black Cat (1934 film) article. Can someone list these 8 movies, if they are indeed 8? --h_a 23:36, 5 July 2007 (UTC)Reply

I have seen footage of Karloff and Lugosi preparing to host a charity performance; if there was the rivalry that some have reported, they hid it well. Naaman Brown (talk) 15:12, 16 August 2011 (UTC)Reply

I'm surprised that no one so far has listed the films in which Lugosi appeared with Boris Karloff.

The Black Cat (1934) Gift of Gab (1934) The Raven (1935) The Invisible Ray (1935) Son of Frankenstein (1939) You'll Find Out (1940) Black Friday (1940) The Body Snatcher (1945)

Lugosi starred in The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942) wherein Karloff appears in old footage reused in a dream sequence. There are probably other marginalia like that which could be used to inflate the list. WHPratt (talk) 14:40, 9 November 2012 (UTC)Reply

Karloff's footage was not used as part of a "dream sequence" but as a flashback to his origins as Elsa reads her grandfather's diary. (Sellpink (talk) 21:03, 8 August 2013 (UTC))Reply

I believe that you're correct -- the dream sequence I remembered was in House of Dracula a few years later. WHPratt (talk) 12:39, 13 September 2013 (UTC)Reply

I think I wanna know what happened to all the actors in B rated films.(TougHHead 19:05, 29 October 2007 (UTC)) Um, he's dead. For a long time. Tithonfury (talk) 02:33, 23 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

In the section of his typecasting, there is a sentence that discusses an "erroneous" belief that he turned down appearing in Frankenstein. Yet in the following paragraphs, it presents several possibilities of why he decided not to do the movie. Regardless of reason, he still declined the movie. This section is unclear and I don't know enough about it to change it, but I really think it would help its clarity. Tithonfury (talk) 02:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)Reply

Per debate and discussion re: assessment of the approximate 100 top priority articles of the project, this article has been included as a top priority article. Wildhartlivie (talk) 06:50, 1 March 2008 (UTC)Reply

I noticed this was previously in the article but was removed (June 2009)

In 1979, Lugosi became the subject of a song by gothic rock band Bauhaus titled "Bela Lugosi's Dead". In 2006, French bossa nova band Nouvelle Vague released their version on their second album Bande à Part. Voltaire has produced a song called "Vampire Club" which mentions "Béla Lugosi's still undead". The German musician Bela B. was inspired by Bela Lugosi to his pseudonym.

And we don't currently have any mention of these. In particular I'm familiar with Bela Lugosi's Dead which is significant to the goth subculture. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_rock http://www.gothicsubculture.com/origin.php http://a44paco.wordpress.com/2007/03/28/hide-the-children-marilyn-manson-is-back/ --75.159.246.68 (talk) 16:59, 21 January 2010 (UTC)Reply

Lugosi was approached in the summer of 1891 to star in a Broadway production of Dracula adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston from Bram Stoker's novel.

Lugosi would have been about 9 years old in 1891... can anyone find the correct date for this event?--Sobekneferu (talk) 10:16, 8 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

Dracula_(play) has a date of 1927 with a citation, so I added it here. --Jamoche (talk) 07:37, 12 May 2010 (UTC)Reply

The article says that "Lugosi Béla" is his native name and "Béla Lugosi" is just the Western name order (and no doubt about it, the name he was known as). Yet, it goes on to say that "Béla Lugosi" is just a stage name and he was born "Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó." So, was he born as "Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső" or is his surname actually "Béla" and did he ever go by "Lugosi Béla" in his native Austria-Hungary (it says he went by "Arisztid Olt" in some order at one point)? The whole "native name" for a stage name doesn't seem to add up and should be clarified in the article.--Tim Thomason 19:16, 27 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

The surnames he used were Blaskó, Olt and Lugosi. Béla is a common given name in Hungary. English name order is given name + middle name(s) + surname. Hungarian name order is surname + given name + "other name(s)" (it doesn't seem to make a lot of sense to call them "middle names" there, because they come at the end, but they're the same as what we'd call "middle names"). So, Ferenc and Dezső were his middle names. In Hungarian, his birth name is given as "Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső"; in English it's "Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó". His first stage name was "Olt Arisztid" in Hungarian name order; "Arisztid Olt" in English name order. His best known stage name is "Lugosi Béla" in Hungarian name order, "Béla Lugosi" in English name order. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:04, 27 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

This relates to the title of the article as much as to how we refer to him in the text.

I fully understand that the accented form is the correct Hungarian orthography, and probably the way he spelt his own name. However, we use Béla 14 times as against 27 times for Bela. That's the first issue: lack of consistency. Better to have either all Bélas or all Belas, than this mish-mash. Unless there's a good reason to start with one and continue with another, which reason should be clearly spelt out.

The next issue is: which one do we choose? According to IMdB, he was billed as Lugosi Béla only in films he made before coming to the USA. After that, it was only ever Bela Lugosi. We can't pretend he never had an early life in Hungary, so we can't just ignore that Béla was ever used. But he did come to fame through Hollywood films, and his fans in English-speaking countries far outnumbered those in Europe, and those fans knew him as Bela Lugosi, not Béla Lugosi. Seven of the eight sources in Further reading use Bela (assuming the titles are quoted correctly); the eighth doesn't use his given name at all. -- Jack of Oz ... speak! ... 20:20, 27 June 2010 (UTC)Reply

I would say "Bela Lugosi" (no accent) should be the acceptable page name and reference name for the article, because that is the name he is known as across the English-speaking world. His birth name isn't even Lugosi, and "Béla Lugosi" (or as you said, rather "Lugosi Béla") was a stage name adapted early on, and the name he personally preferred late in life (I checked online, his signature was "Béla Lugosi" with the accent). But personal preference seems to be trumped by common name here, and most reliable sources have chosen the unaccented "Bela," which is the name he was always credited as in the USA. Of course, as above, I am not an expert on Hungarian-name articles.--Thomason Tím 18:05, 3 July 2010 (UTC)Reply

I hadn't seen this before, but I agree, since "Bela Lugosi" (as opposed to his birth name, where certainly the orthography should remain, though even there sources seem to disagree as to whether it should be Be'la or Béla) was in essence a stage name, and it was used in all of his US film credits, press bios, on his posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and I found that even his own will used "Bela" (which suggests it was the legally recognized spelling when he was a US citizen, at the very least; it's been a few years since I researched this so I'd have to find either the document website with a copy of the will or print source, by now I've forgotten the exact source except that it was from one that included an image of the will as evidence). The two 1918 films which IMDB lists ("Béla Lugosi" on one and "Lugosi Béla" on the other) no longer exist (as far as is known anyway), and we know IMDb uses user submitted data (and also that often actor pages have been renamed but sometimes remnants of the earlier version remain if they're not specifically corrected and so wind up in the "as [blank]" form, whether the screen credits say so or not). Possibly one of the two major Lugosi biographies may discuss the issue especially since he used *another* stage name in several of those films, but it's equally likely that it was just an IMDb user's guess based on what they knew of orthography (which likewise is On the official site, his son also uses Bela consistently, as does every other page on the site.

The log shows that the page was moved to the common usage of "Bela Lugosi" back in 2005, and it was moved again in 2006 on the simple basis that "name has diacritic." That's understandable since the article text at the time had "Béla Lugosi" in the lead sentence. Since then, users have vacillated, some correcting to the diacritic in some places, some changing back, new versions usually using whatever actually applied to the film or stage project in question (the Internet Broadway database uses "Be'la" for the birth name by the way, though of course there's no idea what their source was for that), and so on. By the way, the director of both of those films was, at the time, named "Mihály Kertész." However, he is best known as Michael Curtiz, which is the only way IMDb credits him on both entries, which thus to me further undermines any reason to accept those two entries as a source on how Lugosi's screen credit appeared.

So I'm in full agreement on moving this to Bela Lugosi and consistently using that form when discussing his stage and film career in the US (and England and anywhere else once he was established and using that name). If the birth punctuation can indeed be thoroughly confirmed, then I'd say we could use that in the section discussing his youth and any work prior to 1922. The only sources on this page for the birth name (and it's a little unclear if that's what's being sourced, or the dates and parentage) are "Variety Obituaries" (so someone would have to find the actual obituary and even then it's hardly as effective a source as a birth record). A second citation is for "IMDb and Biography Channel," so definitely not reliable either. Really right now "Bela Lugosi" is far more reliably sourced than the birth name's spelling. -- Aleal (talk) 02:01, 3 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Aha, through Google books, I found a page from Arthur Lennig's 2003 biography, The Immortal Count: The Life and Times of Bela Lugosi (the author, in his preface, notes that he traveled to "Romani and Hungary in the summer of 1970. There I interviewed his friends, researched his theatrical career, visited the church where he was baptized, and found his elusive birth record.") On page 15, Lennig gives his birth name as "Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó," which tallies with this page (and under the circs, shouldn't just be listed as "further reading" but cited as a source for the spelling). The book further notes on the same page that he adopted the name of Béla Lugossy when he was "about twenty" (so approximately 1902) and in 1911 modified it to the best known form, Lugosi. By the way, page 14 reproduces a poster from a Hungarian stage show (I presume it was in Hungary, hard to tell from the brief Google Books excerpts) where his name appears as "Lugossy Béla." The author by the way uses Béla for his childhood, youth and other periods when his research proved that he indeed would have used that punctuation/spelling both privately and professionally, but Bela is the primary usage and sole usage once he confirmed the change. (I'll try to get access to the actual book, which the excerpts make clear discusses the name history in greater detail). -- Aleal (talk) 02:18, 3 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

I know several people from Hungary with this first name and it's pronounced "Bay-la" not "Bella". Just wanted to add this. 184.23.252.101 (talk) 19:18, 23 October 2023 (UTC)Reply

i think this resarch is waesome :) — Preceding unsigned comment added by LizziePooh9094 (talk • contribs) 18:46, 25 March 2011 (UTC)Reply

Hi all, please participate in the deletion discuss for the infobox image here. I would love if anyone can come up with reliable sourcing for where this image came from, such that its copyright status is verifiable. Thanks, Calliopejen1 (talk) 01:31, 19 December 2012 (UTC)Reply

I love the caption for the Invisible Ghost photo, citing that Lugosi is in the center. EnjoyForward (talk) 23:31, 22 January 2013 (UTC)Reply

Wife #2 only gets mentioned in the infobox. Why isn't she in the Personal life section? Nyttend (talk) 02:55, 23 March 2014 (UTC)Reply

I've read in other web accounts that Lugosi helped start the Screen Actors' Guild, just as he did similarly when he worked in Europe. If this is true, it may help to explain why Lugosi didn't get many roles at the bigger studios. When the knowledge of Nazi atrocities became known, his typecasting as a horror actor should have helped him gain roles as Nazi commanders in the war movies that were made after 1945. If anything, his natural Hungarian accent could only help him. I've also read that his drug use was another detriment but his role in the formation of the guild may not have endeared him to Hollywood executives. MARK VENTURE (talk) 17:32, 10 May 2014 (UTC)Reply

This article has way too much wrong info to correct it all. You guys don't bother with facts check? Fingers broken, can't Google? Here's one: "The cape Lugosi wore in Dracula (1931) survives today in the ownership of Universal Studios." Wrong! A quick Google search shows you that it's in possession of his son, Bela Jr, & family. In 2011, he tried to auction it off for over a million dollars. It didn't sell. Plenty of images & documentation online prove this. Why so little care for this article? The notorious reputation of Wiki for wrong info is proudly displayed at this page! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.43.113.107 (talk) 19:13, 28 February 2018 (UTC)Reply

My understanding is that Bela Lugosi was the Minister of Culture of the Republic of Workers Councils in Budapest in 1919.

On a visit to Budapest I was informed that he was also on the extreme left wing of the Hungarian Communist Party of those days, and that the Hungarian regime was considerably to the left of the Bolsheviks.

Some kind of elaboration of this might be useful.

Charlie Lomax (talk) 16:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)Charlie LomaxCharlie Lomax (talk) 16:51, 14 July 2018 (UTC)Reply

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