“The hour of complete ascendancy,” wrote H. G. Wells of dominant species, “ has been the eve of entire overthrow.” Maybe, maybe not, but Wells might be describing the horror film of 1935 in general, and Lugosi’s career in particular. Lugosi and the horror genre began 1935 more in demand in Hollywood than ever before, and ended in the brink of oblivion. As the British ban of movie horror took hold, Hollywood followed, and horror film production soon ceased. Lugosi would be almost entirely out of work for 3 years. But 1935 saw him at his peak.
From the pressbook of Mark of the Vampire
CALLS WOMEN MORE MORBID THAN MEN
“Women are more morbid than men.”
Such is the cynical, but, he insists, nonetheless scientific observation of Bela Lugosi, famous delineator of vampire and terror roles on the screen.
He says he knows it’s true because women have always provided the greater part of his audiences. Feminine longing for shocks means his daily bread.
They Pack Courtrooms
“When I did Dracula on the stage,” he relates, “ women outnumbered men in the audiences five to one. That got me thinking. I remembered how women, during the war, used every possible device to get to the front—writers, sociologists, and so forth. I have watched women pack courtrooms at murder trials. And I discovered that the so-called horror picture has the same appeal.”
“I suppose it’s because a woman, being psychologically high-strung, likes shock to the nervous system as a counter irritant to her nervous tension.”
Lugosi’s views are borne-out by Browning, who relates that the terror mysteries of the late Lon Chaney, most of which he directed, has their greatest successes among feminine audiences.
The San Mateo Times, March 1, 1935.
THE HOLLYWOOD PARADE
by Willa Okker
Times Staff Correspondent
“Women are more morbid than men.”
Bela Lugosi, famous delineator of vampire and terror roles on the screen, was sitting in on a ring of newspaper reporters, and dropped this nifty little cynicism. He insisted in the next breath that he based the statement on science.
Well, newspaper reporters, alleged to be the world’s greatest cynics—between you and me a lot of rubbish—are the world’s biggest softies underneath. They are also sentimentalists at heart. The old cynical shell is a defense mechanism so they don’t bust out crying, ’cause believe you me, brother, a reporter sees life in the raw. Well, being as I told you on our brotherhood, I also have to add that neither are they scientific. So, the brethren with a concocted “yeah,” and tipped their funny hats further forward on their noses and let their cigarettes droop a little further out of the sides of their mouths.
“I know this is true,” pursued Lugosi, “because women have always provided the greater part of my audiences. Feminine longing for shocks is my daily bread.”
“When I did Dracula on the stage”—he pulled his chair closer—“women outnumbered men in the audiences five to one. That got me thinking. I remembered how women, during the war, used every possible device to get to the front—reporters (he leered at me), sociologists, and so on—to see what was happening. I have watched women pack courtrooms at murder trials. And in pictures, I have discovered that the so-called horror picture has a definite appeal to women audiences”—and the male brethren protaxed in chorus, bowing their hats.
“I suppose it’s because a woman, being psychologically high-strung, likes shock to the nervous system as a counter irritant to her nervous tension.”
Lugosi, playing the sinister vampire in Vampires of the Night, the picture now being made which deals with weird, bat-like forms that change to human beings, sinister shadows, vampires that attack the living, a pitting of wits against the super-natural, turned to me with “You, as a woman, can tell me that I am correct.”
But I had to go comb a lion’s beard. I still think they ought to leave us girls a few secrets.
“To You!” Magazine, May 1935 Vol. 2 Issue 3
PHILOSOPHIE OF HOLLYWOOD – TINKER TOWN
The Philosophy of Bela Lugosi
The Horror Man of Hollywood
by Helen Mitchell
Ushered into a great room which overlooks the hills, my thoughts revolved back to just such a room in a baronial castle high in the Tyrolian Alps. Surely a fitting setting for Bela Lugosi, the world-famous horror man of the screen, with its massive furniture and great stone fireplace. Over the mantle blazed a crest in triumphant colors, with the inscriptionVojnic. The banner of Bela Lugosi’s people, meaning “The Soldier.” A hundred years ago they drove the invading Turks from their land, then Hungary, now Rumania, and were knighted for their bravery. I was still studying the escutcheon when the majestic gentlemen himself entered. At once the room seemed magnetized with his presence. There is an enchantment about Bela Lugosi that is magic to the personalities and inanimate things about him. I drifted with the illusion and found myself at the portals of age-old wisdom. For Bela Lugosi is a very old, san and deep philosopher.
My eyes still wandered about the strangely monarchial room, fancy free, and then my host caught them in full wonderment on the vast collection of books and literature.
“Reading and research is my passion. I am an eager searcher for knowledge and truth.”
“But you are so busy with those difficult roles piled upon you after the other. When do you find time to read.”
He lighted one of a row of long-stemmed black charred pipes and settled back in his great chair. “No matter whether I work or relax I read from 6 to 8 hours a day, and have since I was a boy of 18. I was denied education and it caused me great mental anguish.”
It seemed to me a shade of some old sadness across his fine intelligent face. He did not continue so I broke into his reverie, “What a wealth of knowledge you must have garnered all these years.”
He smiled. “Knowledge is a never ending fount. I have mastered many interesting courses of progress—spiritually—economically—physically. There isn’t a city or hamlet in any country in the world, that I cannot immediately place its environ, its people, its habits, industries and policies.”
I marveled as he continued in his modest way. “When there is an outbreak in China, I can readily trace the source through my researches.” His eyes gleamed. “There is no fascination like that. To keep one’s fingers on the many threads of life like a great harp and follow their many vibrations. That is my greatest joy.”
“Vibrations,” I m used, “that opens an interesting avenue of thought.”
“Ah yes!” My flesh body, that chair, this pie are all part of a great intelligence given expression in different degrees of vibration.”
The Kingsport Times,Kingsport, Tennesee, May 26, 1935
MR. WONG
There are more performances of Shakespeare in Hungary that in any other country, according to Bela Lugosi, the Hungarian actor whose portrayal of sinister characters on the stage and screen have been cinema standout for several years.
This, says the actor, is due to the fact that the theatre in Hungary is under direction of the Ministry of Education, and is an honored institution whose cultural influences are thoroughly appreciated.
Pardonable Egotism
“Though it is egotism, it is, I hope, pardonable,” declares Mr. Lugosi, “when an artist has achieved recognition in his own country, to take it for granted that his name is not entirely strange in other centers of culture, and perhaps to resent it when he finds out that he is quite unknown and must begin again.”
“The roles with which my name were most clearly identified,” the actor continued, “were those of heroic and romantic character. I think my most popular performances in Hungary’s capital were as Romeo, Hamlet and Cyrano de Bergerac.”
He plays the title role in “The Mysterious Mr. Wong,” at the Gem Theatre Wednesday and Thursday.
Universal Publicity Release, 1935
“I DON’T GROW HORNS FOR EARS” SAYS BELA LUGOSI
Famous Thriller Star of Universal’s The Raven
Talks About His Screen Roles
I am made in the same mould as everyone else. I don’t grow any horns for ears, nor do I spout bat’s wings on my back. Fan letters came to me from all over the world from people who have heard strange tales about my childhood in the Hungarian town of Lugos. The writers ask if my parents were hypnotists; if I commune with ghosts, and whether or not I practice the supernatural in my private life. They say my eyes have an expression unlike the eyes of any human being!
As a matter of fact my childhood in the Black Mountains was the usual husky, healthy everyday life of any country boy. My father, Baron Lugosi, was engaged in the practical and profitable business of banking, and there was nothing weird or extraordinary in my family background. I t is under circumstances which make me a theatrical personality which many believe is also a part of my private or personal life.
Planning a Career
In my early teens, I was deeply attracted to the theatre. I met with no parental objections to my choice of a career, because in Hungary a man plans to become an actor with the same serious outlook on like as the person who chooses to be a statesman, a lawyer, or a banker. One studies at the Academy of Theatrical Arts in Budapest for four years, just as in any college course for other professions. Each year students who fail the examinations are eliminated, and by the time diplomas are distributed a good average would be 50 graduates out of an original 500 entrants. Then comes what might be called a post-graduate course of touring the provinces in a widely-varied repertoire.
As with the Comedie Francaise in Paris, once an actor does make the grade in Hungary’s Royal National Theatre he has a job for life, unless he leaves the country. Because I wanted to see the world and enlarge my horizon, and because it is my temperament to seek adventure rather than be pinned down to routine and certainty, I was almost glad after 10 years of repeated successes to be able to escape as a political refuge after the Bela Kun uprising. I welcomed the ups and downs of seeking my fortune in New York in 1921.
Dracula
Partly because of my accent at that time and also because my name was unknown, with no big box-office draw, I discovered all my years’ experience in classical plays in Shakespeare, Ibsen, Rostand and Hauptmann, as well as foremost modern playwrights of my own country, counted for very little with the American producers. It was not until I played Dracula for a two years’ run that I finally won out.
When Universal brought Dracula to the screen there was a great deal of controversy as to whether or not such a daring departure from the general rune of screen entertainment would prove to have a wide audience appeal. The answer was soon supplied by the tremendous enthusiasm with which the public pushed and paid its way wherever this forerunner of all future thriller films was shown. Through no special volition of my own I found myself in demand as the portrayer of fiendish, mystic and mysterious roles. I became identified with such productions as Chandu the Magician, The House of Doom, Night of Terror, Murders in the Rue Morgue, and my current film, The Raven.
Acting Technique
In my opinion there is only one technique for an actor, whether he is impersonating a great lover like Romeo, a great general like Napoleon or a great villain like Bluebeard. He must, through experience, infinite pains, sensitivity and intuitive understanding, be capable of actually living any given role. If he resorts only to outward semblance, mannerisms and bags of clever tricks, he is a puppet of a personality; if he obliterates self and fits his part like a glove, he is an actor.
It is my particular pride that even in the most fantastic of my film roles I do not use make-up. Instead of depending upon masks, casts, court plaster and false features, I create the illusion of a terrifying, distorted or uncanny make-up by an appeal to the imagination. An evil expression in the eyes, a sinister arch to the brows or a leer on my lips—all of which take long practice in muscular control—are sufficient to hypnotise an audience into seeing what I want them to see and what I myself see in my mind’s eye. In like manner, by the way in which I use my fingers, and gesticulate with my hands, I give the illusion of their being misshapen, extra large, or extra small—or whatever the part requires. And I consider it part of an actor’s art to be able to shorten or lengthen his body or change its very shape by the power of suggestion, without false paddings or other artificial aids.
The Sunday New York Times, July 7, 1935
DRACULA WITHOUT HIS CAPE
The visitor stood before Bela Lugosi’s door and hesitated. He was not exactly frightened, but he was glad he had remembered to put on a stiffly starched collar to protect his throat, just in case Mr. Lugosi did turn out to be a real vampire.
He knocked and before he knew it he was shaking hands with a tall man. It was Dracula himself without the white mask like face and without the penetrating eyes. Instead he was rather like a senior master of an English public school.
After a brief introduction, an “eye-opener” was offered, fro Mr. Lugosi, despite his Hungarian upbringing and his precise rather formal way of speaking, frequently intersperses his conversation with Yankee idioms.
If the visitor hadn’t had the misfortune of being a teetotaler, he would have welcomed the offer, for it was 10 o’clock in the morning, an unconsciously early hour for any self-respecting werewolf to be seeing visitors. Mr. Lugosi’s early rising is but one instance of the difference between Mr. Lugosi on the screen and Mr. Lugosi in private life.
There is another: Mr. Lugosi does not sleep in a coffin containing earth from Transylvania. Through the half-open bedroom door, a bed could be seen; what is more, a large soft bed with sheets and blankets, and it showed unmistakable evidence of having been slept on.
Throughout the visit, Mr. Lugosi sat in a small arm chair, smoking a sturdy straight-stemmed brown pipe and reminiscing. He is a gentle, quiet man who gives an impression of mellow wisdom. Many things amuse him, especially the wry paradoxes of life.
One of the paradoxes he enjoys most is that he should get much more mail from women now that he plays vampire roles than he ever received when he played romantic lovers on the stage. Ninety per cent of his letters were from women, he said. “They eat it up,” said Dracula referring to his various murderous screen activities. “Most of the men who write are either astrologers or spiritualists. They try to catch me up on my theories.”
*
Mr. Lugosi has played a crazy scientist, a jewel thief, a power-mad Chinese, a maniac who wanted to destroy the world with a death ray, a zombie who dug up corpses, and, of course, a blood-sucking vampire. Yet, despite the fact that he has been all these horrible creatures, practically all his mail is laudatory. He boasts that he never received a letter from an indignant mother protesting that he had terrified her child.
Most of his letters, he said, asked one of two questions. Did he believe in the supernatural—vampires, werewolves and the like? And was he a vampire or a werewolf himself?
“I answer them both in the same way,” he said, “I say that I have never met a vampire personally, but I don’t know what might happen tomorrow; this saves me from lying and it does not give away my trade secrets.
*
Mr. Lugosi makes about eight horror pictures a year. He didn’t confess that he is fed up with them; but he did say that he would like to do only five horror parts a year, with the other three straight character roles. He emphasized the fact that he took his fiendish work seriously.
“You can’t make people believe in you if you play a horror part with your tongue in your cheek. The screen magnifies everything, even the way you are thinking. If you are not serious, people will sense it. No matter how hokum or highly melodramatic the horror part may be, you believe in it while you are playing it.”
Mr. Lugosi’s career can be summed up this way—classic roles, ardent love-making (theatrical) and deadly crimes. After his graduation from the Academy Theatrical Arts in Budapest, he made his debut at the age of twenty as Romeo in a Magyar version of Romeo and Juliet. Then followed three years of classical repertory at the National Theatre in Budapest.
During the war he was in the trenches for three years, serving first as a lieutenant and then as a captain. After a revolution following the war, he came to the United States as a political refugee. He worked his way across the ocean as a third engineer on the boat.
He reached New York in January 1921, where he organized a Hungarian dramatic company of which he was the producer, director and star. After two years of this, he accept the role of a Spanish Apache on the English-speaking stage. He accepted the part even though he couldn’t speak English. He learned lines by their sound rather than their meaning.
His love-making, he said, was so hot that he broke two of Estelle Winwood’s ribs when he was embracing her during the third performance of the play. The play, “The Red Poppy” was followed by four more in which he again played romantic, if more restrained, lovers.
Then Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” was in New York. He was chosen for the title role. The play was enormously successful. It ran a year on Broadway and two on the road. Mr. Lugosi then did it for the movies. Ever since that time he has kept the scenarists busy thinking up novel and dastardly crimes for him to commit.
He stopped in New York last week, as he said himself, “to take a bow at the opening of his new picture, “The Raven” at the Roxy, and then left for England to appear in “The Mystery of the Mary Celeste,” an Alexander Korda production.
A publicity still for Mystery of the Marie Celeste, made in England in 1935
Film Star Weekly, London, UK, August 17, 1935
BAY-LA LU-GO-SHE IS HERE
Bela Lugosi is in London. That uncanny monster of horror pictures, whom we were first introduced to as Count Dracula, with his frightening, death-like pallor, piercing eyes, and his altogether Mephisto-like appearance. Without his “war paint,” as he calls it, you don’t recognize the horrific creature you’ve seen on the screen; you see instead, an engaging aristocrat, with the European courtesy of his native Hungary, from which he fled as a political refugee to America.
It was noticing how women pack court-rooms at murder trials that gave him the idea that horror films would have the same appeal.
“I suppose it’s because a woman, being psychologically high-strung, likes shocks to the nervous system tension,” he said when I saw him, after making a personal appearance after the Press show of The Raven.
When Bela Lugosi arrived here—by the way, his name is pronounced Bayla Lu-go-she—he started straight away on his first British picture, which is Dennison Clift’s The Mystery of the Mary Celeste.
When he was approached to play the playoff Anton Lorenzen in this film he said: “Are there any bats in it? I hate them, but invariably have at least one in my films.”
So, if you meet Bela Lugosi here, don’t mention bats!”
The New York World Telegram, August 28, 1935
BEING HORRIBLE IS A GOOD BUSNESS TO BELA LUGOSI, BUT HE ENJOYED BEING LOVABLE IN NEW BRITISH ROLE
Scaring Folks Allows Him to Buy Drinks for the Boys
by Asa Bordages
Bela Lugosi, the Dracula of the movies, let his pretty wife put a red carnation in his buttonhole as he had his say about moviemaking in England and Hollywood. For one thing, he found the English were courteous.
Mr. Lugosi, a No. 1 creeps and shiver man in Hollywood, profitably hated by film fans everywhere, confided happily that in a picture he has just finished making in England, he at least has a chance to be seen as a nice man. The only people he had to scare are the villains, which is a great relief.
“I am just the opposite to all the roles I ever played before,: he said, and his gesture of enthusiasm brushed the rad carnation almost from his buttonhole. Mrs. Lugosi quietly straightened the flower as Dracula gaily added that he plays a kindly derelict. And he is the most loveable fellow, too. In fact he exclaimed in triumph—
“Why, I’m killing about 7 people, and everybody will love me!”
The film is a version of The Mystery of the Mart Celeste, a mystery never solved in the long yea the brig Mary Celeste was found at sea with all sails set, a meal on the table, everything shipshape—no trace of the master, his wife, his child or crew.
It is, said Mr. Lugosi, a “wonderful story.” But now he must quit being lovable for a while. For Mr. Lugosi, who arrived with his wife on the Majestic yesterday, has only one week of grace before returning to Hollywood to start frightening little children again.
There is, however, consolation for being horrible. As Mr. Lugosi explained while his wife tried again to fix the red carnation more firmly in his buttonhole:
“It’s a good business; so I can buy steamship tickets, give tips and invite the boys for a drink. If I wouldn’t make such pictures—maybe trash—I couldn’t do it.”
It is not, however, money which brings Mr. Lugosi back to Hollywood. For he said:
“They pay all the money in the world in London. I don’t get half as much in Hollywood.”
The single reason, he said, is that he wants to live here. If he hadn’t he never would have given up his native Hungary to become an American citizen.
“The idea,” he said, “is that I myself feel the most loyal to America than you can imagine. But I feel that was if somebody does something I do not think is right; I am like a mother going to spank.”
And some of the things he saw making movies in England made him feel that way about the home folks. Or some of them, at least.
“I think that England, if they would have the sense to buy the technicians of Hollywood, they would be very, very keen competition to Hollywood on account Hollywood doesn’t let authors, writers exploit and deliver their talents and imaginations. It has to go through the mill, not passed by one individual talent, right or wrong.”
“There is something in England we do not have in the matter of courtesy. Whether they like you or not, they fell if they would not be kind, courteous, they would offend themselves.”
“I observed a lot in England in the way of courtesy I would like to spread here. They don’t curtail authors so much. They work more at leisure. They are rested people working. That is why they sometimes get the results they do.”
And then, as his wife once again straightened the red carnation, and gave it a little pat, Mr. Lugosi said:
“As far as I can think now with my paralyzed brain, that is all I have to say.”
Picture Show, London, UK, September 21 1935
BELA LUGOSI
The Film Fiend Who Is Loved By Children
by O. Bristol
Hush! Hush! Hush! Here comes Bela Lugosi.
Hollywood’s most famous Bogy Man has come to England to appear in his first British picture, The Mystery of the Marie Celeste, which is based on the now almost forgotten but once celebrated mystery of the sea.
Dracula was the actor’s first great success in horror films and since then he has always appeared as a fiend in American pictures. Chandu the Magician, White Zombie, The Death Kiss, International House, Mark of the Vampire, and The Raven, his latest picture, are among the sensational thrillers in which he has played, and parents, instead of saying “If you’re not a good boy I’ll set the Bogy Man after you,” might now threaten their children with “Do as you’re told or I’ll fetch Bela Lugosi.”
But the children, more often than not, would cry excitedly, “Where is he? Where is he? Do let us see Lugosi!”
Here, unquestionably, is the most popular Bogy Man of all times.
While I was interviewing him at his hotel a few hours after his arrival in London, a page-boy at the hotel approached Mr. Lugosi for his autograph.
“Sure! Yes. Come over here,” cried the actor heartily, patting the delighted boy playfully on the head as he returned the album. “I hope I see a lot more of you, son, during my stay here.”
The he turned towards me again.
“How I love these kids! They are my real audience,” he said proudly, “and how loyal they are to their favorites! That’s the type of little fellow who really likes me. They’re not frightened by my pictures—not really. They love every bit of them. And when they recognize me in America the children cluster around me in the street and shout, ‘Make funny faces, Lugosi! Make funny faces!’”
He is genuinely fond of children, and there is certainly nothing about his appearance in private life to suggest that he is the world’s most celebrated monster. True, he is over six feet tall, and he has the most expressive eyes I have ever seen. But his manner is almost gentle and his smile is friendly and completely free from the evil which his screen smile always suggests.
Hollywood Insists That He Shall Be A Fiend
“I was for 20 years as actor before I tool the unpleasant part,” he told me, “but since I make money playing pictures like Dracula Hollywood says why not let him continue to be a fiend, and I heartily agree with Hollywood.”
“But, as a matter of fact,” he added with a delightful smile, “I’m really a very nice chap! And I don’t want always to play this sort of part.”
Hollywood, however, says that he is a fiend and Hollywood should know best. When he returns to America I understand he is booked to appear in three more hair-raisers. These are The Invisible Ray, Bluebeard, and Dracula’s Daughter.
The son of a banker, he made his stage debut when he was 19 with a stock company which visited his home town in Hungary. After many years in the theatre he first appeared on the screen in silent German films and then went to America, where he made his Hollywood screen debut in The Silent Command.
This is his first visit to this country and with him is his beautiful wife, to whom he has been married for two and a half years.
“I think she is the grandest wife in the world; I wish all men had a wife like mine,” he exclaimed with obvious sincerity. “She was my book-keeper and secretary for two years before we eloped to get married. She had youth and beauty and was so loyal and good that I couldn’t help marrying her!”
These two obviously understand each other thoroughly, and although they had only been in England a few hours they were both obviously in love with this country—and with each other. Lugosi was in splendid form, answering our questions with the greatest good humour.
His Trade Secret
Having read some extraordinary publicity stories about this genius of uncanny films, I asked him if it were true that he had once been bitten by a vampire.
I had saved this question for the last.
Just a moment his film personality seemed to leap into existence. His eyebrows arched and a magnetic gleam came into his dark eyes.
“That,” he said solemnly as he gripped my hand, “that is m trade secret!”
Half sheet poster for Murder by Television
CAMEO PICTURES CORPORATION
BIOGRAPHICAL QUESTIONAIRE
This questionnaire was filled out by Lugosi to assist publicity for Murder by Television,released October 1st, 1935.
It was reprinted in Famous Monsters of Filmland #112. Lugosi’s answers are in italics.
Cameo Pictures Corporation Biographical Information
This is to insure accuracy in our publicity, and to provide complete and accurate material necessary for newspaper and magazine stories.
- Screen name: Bela Lugosi. Real name in full: was Bela Blasko – legally changed to Bela Lugosi.
- Height: 6’1”. Nickname: None.
- Nationality: Hungarian. Color of hair: Brown
- Weight: 170 lbs. Color of eyes: Blue
- Education: High School College: x
- Parents names: Stephan Blasko – Paula von Vojnics. Both living: No.
Where: Buried at Lugos, Hungary. Father’s business: was bank president.
Famous ancestors or relatives: None.
Brothers or sisters names: Vilma – Lajos – Laszlo.
Earliest childhood ambitions: Highway Bandit.
- Present ambition: Dude Ranch.
- First Occupation: Actor. Where: Travelling Repertoire.
- How did your career begin: College Dramatics.
- Stage debut in Romeo. Year: 1906. Place: Lugos, Hungary.
Broadway debut: Red Poppy. Year: 1922. Co-starred with: Estelle Winwood.
Last play: Murder at the Vanities. Year: 1933. Place: New York City.
Other important plays: In America – Dracula
In Hungary – all the great parts in literature
Stock in what cities: None
- Film debut: The Silent Command. Year: 1923. Star: Heavy with all star cast.
First large part: Same.
First talkie: Prisoners. Year: 1929. Star: Corinne Griffith.
Last Picture: Mark of the Vampire. Year: 1935. Star: All Star.
Other pictures: Mysterious Mr. Wong, Return of Chandu, Black Cat.
- Favorite screen role: Count Dracula in Dracula.
- Favorite stage role: Cyrano de Bergerac in Cyrano de Bergerac.
- Prefer screen to stage: Yes. Why: Variety.
- What type of role have you played most: great characters.
- What type do you prefer: Human interest.
- Favorite stage players: None.
- Favorite screen player: Mickey Mouse.
- Favorite playwrights:
- Favorite books: Social science and economy.
- Favorite authors: None.
- Favorite sports to watch: Soccer.
- Favorite sports to watch: Golf.
- Highspots of your life (in chronological order)
1 to 10 years
10 to 20 years It is no one’s business
20 to 30 years
Ad infinitum
- Clothes: prefer conservative or modist conservative
ready made or tailored tailored
Favor sports or formal wear? sports.
Favorite colors bright.
Favorite materials flannels.
- Have you any beauty secrets such as methods of make-up, care of hair, eyes, hands, skin, facials, massages, oils, creams: none.
- How do you keep in conditions? (health institute, daily or weekly massages, sun-baths,setting-up exercises, sports?)
- Food: Favorite dish: stuffed cabbage. Like to cook: —
Between meal snacks: no. Bedtime snack: no.
Favorite recipe, dish: —
- Married: Yes. Or want to be: To whom:
Date: Jan 31, 1933. Children:
Favorite type of man or woman: reserved and honest.
- What do you do for diversion and recreation aside from sports (dance, sing, write, paint, compose music, sculp, read, games)
- Where do you prefer to live permanently (seashore, mountains, city, abroad)
- Where do you live now (apartment, house, seashore, city, mountains)
- Where have you traveled all over the world.
- Who are your closest friends stage hands.
- What makes you angry: talk.
- What pets have you: 3 dogs.
- What do you do on the set: smoke.
- Where do you go on weekends: outing.
- Do you have any cars, airplanes, yachts, horses: Car.
- Interested in politics? Yes.
- Pet peeves: aggravation. Live with parents: no.
- Pet economy: matches & corks. Pet extravagance: oold wines and good cigars.
- Favorite dress: — Favorite perfume: Eau de Cologne.
- Do you smoke: yes. Speak any foreign language parents: Hungarian and others.
- Your greatest thrill: When I got aboard ship to come to America.
- Do you like Rain: No To write letters: No
Autographs: No Animals: Yes To pose for stills: No
Night clus: No Children: Yes To carry umbrellas: No
Street cars: No Sun baths: Yes Showers or bathtubs: both
Prohibition: No Fan mail: Yes Modern architecture: No
To entertain: Yes Holidays: ? Personal appearances: No
To sleep late: Yes Premiers: No To drive your own car: No
Silk underwear: No To dine at home: Yes Open cars: No
Radio programs: No Airplanes: No To read before sleeping: No
To go shopping: Yes Bathsalts: No Letters of introduction: No
Ice cream cones: No Hollywood: Yes Bright or subdued colors
To travel alone: Yes
The Sandusky Register, Sandusky, Ohio, November 12, 1935
SCREEN LIFE IN HOLLYWOOD
Hollywood , Nov. 11—An evening with the Bela Lugosi is an adventure in old-world hospitality, informality and entertainment.
Although you know that actors are playing parts on the screen, you can’t help but feel that some of them live lives not unlike those of the characters they portray.
This, somehow, seems particularly true of Bela Lugosi, who having played that monster “Dracula” a thousand times is allowed to express himself in none other than horror roles in films. He is more definitely typed than any other actor in town. Even Karloff occasionally gets a sympathetic role. But Lugosi, never. Many feel, suppose, that a man who makes his livelihood scaring children must be a misanthropic old meanie who growls at the newsboys.
Dilutes His Wine
Lugosi is Hungarian and a political exile from his native land. He sided with the wrong party in a political revolution. Some of his more vociferous cohorts were put to death or imprisoned, but he escaped and came to America. At first, Lugosi was the leading man in his own Hungarian stock company. He had never been a villain when the play Draculacame his way, but looked like a good thing so he took it. When the two-an-a-half-year tour ended in Hollywood, Lugosi was invited to stay.
“It is a funny way to earn a living—acting,” he says, “But it pays well, so I mustn’t complain too much…” We are walking through the Lugosi house, a huge brick affair with stone floors and high beamed ceilings (“But I rent it awfully cheap,” he explains) and by this time we have reached the cellar. There are many huge cabinets, stocked with wines imported from Hungary. Lugosi says he is not being patriotic; it just happens that he likes Hungarian wine so well that he pays extra to have it shipped to him. For his personal use, Lugosi dilutes his wine with a very strong smelling sulphur water. Odorous, but healthful, Bela said.
The Hammond Times, Hammond, Indiana, December 13, 1935
WEDDED BLISS UP TO WOMAN, LUGOSI CLAIMS
Married Four Time, He Says It’s Up To Wife To Get Along With Husband
by Wallace N. Rawls
(staff correspondent, un service)
Hollywood , Nov. 11—Bela Lugosi, the film star, nearing the third year of marriage to his present wife is certain he has found the secret of successful marriage and that he won’t be joining the Gables and other Hollywood divorce couples.
Success he declares depends entirely upon the woman. It is up to her to get along with the man. It is not in his nature to be able to adjust to her. She must adjust to him and if she is unable or unwilling to do so, marriage plays to an empty house. It is a “flop.”
The actor bases his conclusions on experiences. He has been married four times. His first was to Ilona Szmik, a Budapest society girl. It ended after two years.
His second in New York, was to Ilona von Montagh, a Hungarian actress. They lived together for only two weeks.
His third at Redwood City, California was to the wealthy society matron, Mrs. Beatrice Weeks, widow of the famed San Francisco architect Charles Peter Weeks. That marriage lasted only four days.
His present wife, the former Lillian Arch a Los Angeles girl, married her boss. She was Lugosi’s secretary and bookkeeper.
Happy marriage, Lugosi says, is love, understanding, and harmonious companionship. Its requisites are mutual tolerance and patience. Emphatically he says it has nothing to do with infatuation or sex.
The actor can’t believe that a woman is happy in business or in being independent. He declares that she needs a master, needs to be led, and, on this premise, her place is in the home, taking care of the man and his children.
“It is neither to a woman’s advantage nor interest to be in business,” the actor asserts. “She has a very beautiful and worthwhile place in the home. If she does her work well, she has more than enough to keep her busy.”
The Morning World, Monroe, Louisiana, December 29, 1935
SCREEN LIFE IN HOLLYWOOD
by Hubbard Keavy
Hollywood —An evening with the Bela Lugosis is an adventure in old-world hospitality, informality and entertainment.
Although you know that actors are playing parts on the screen, you can’t help but feel that some of them live lives not unlike those of the characters they portray.
This, somehow, seems particularly true of Bela Lugosi, who, having played that monster, “Dracula” a thousand times, is allowed to express himself in none other than horror films. He is more definitely typed than any other actor in town. Even Karloff occasionally gets a sympathetic role. But Lugosi, never. Many feel, I suppose, that a man who makes his livelihood scaring children must be a misanthropic old meanie who growls at the newsboys.
Dilutes His Wine
Lugosi is Hungarian and a political exile from his native land. He sided with the wrong party in a political revolution. Some of his more vociferous cohorts were put to death or imprisoned, but he escaped and came to America. At first, Lugosi was the leading man in his own Hungarian stock company. He had never been a villain when the play Dracula came his way, but it looked like a good thing so he took it. When the two-and-a-half-year tour ended in Hollywood, Lugosi was invited to stay.
“It is a funny way to earn a living—acting,” he says. “But it pays well, so I mustn’t complain too much…” We are walking through the Lugosi house, a huge brick affair with stone floors and high beamed ceilings (“But I rent it awfully cheap,” he explains) and by this time we have reached the cellar. There are many huge cabinets, stocked with wines imported from Hungary. Lugosi says he is not being patriotic. It just happens that he likes Hungarian wine so well that he pays extra to have it shipped to him. For his personal use, Lugosi dilutes his wine with a very strong smelling sulphur water. Odorous, but healthful, Bela said.
Married His Secretary
The present and fourth Mrs. Lugosi is a Hungarian girl who was Bela’s secretary. Neither is acquainted with any Hollywood acting folk. Their friends are Hungarians, mostly all of long standing. One of them is Duci Kerakjerto, the violin virtuoso, whose playing contributed to the success of the evening. Nyiredhazy, the pianist (greater than Paderewski—Lugosi) was supposed to be there, but he decided to get married. A girl danced and another girl sang. It was all very informal.
“Hollywood doesn’t see much of me,” Lugosi commented, “because I prefer the company of my wife, my dogs, and my books. I suppose, because I don’t go around much, that people have the impression I am a disagreeable guy. Oh, well, every man to his taste.”
Bela and Lilian aboard the S.S. Majestic on August 27th, 1935.
They were returning from England where Bela had filmed Dark Eyes of London.
The Bela Lugosi Blog 