BELA LUGOSI, SUBOTICA, DRACULA, HOLLYWOOD
Not many people know that the legendary Bela Lugosi – the first Count Dracula ever put on screen, the horror icon of the 1930s and the owner of a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – began his Hollywood career on a Subotica stage.
Bela Lugosi was born in Lugoj, in today’s Romania, and at the age of seventeen he came to Subotica to live with his mother and his sister Vilma, who had married there. He set about looking for work at once and took a job on the railway, but he had an incredibly strong wish to act. His sister Vilma managed to ‘slip him into’ the Subotica National Theatre in 1901, where he made his first appearance in the chorus of an operetta. As time went by Bela advanced, above all thanks to playing Shakespeare’s characters, his favourites for the rest of his life.
Acting took him from Subotica to Szeged and to Budapest, where from 1912 he performed at the Budapest National Theatre, playing Romeo, Hamlet, William Tell… That is where the beginning of the Great War found him.
Bela emigrated to America in 1921 and made his film debut only two years later. He got the part of Count Dracula on Broadway thanks to his presence and striking looks, but also to his exotic Hungarian accent. His last high-budget film was ‘Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein’ from 1948.
His roles were always interesting and important, yet they were never rewarded – it is telling that Martin Landau won an Oscar in 1994 precisely for playing Bela Lugosi, among other things thanks to learning the Hungarian accent. Looking back on that Oscar, Martin said: “This Oscar came as a chance for a comeback in my career, but it is also my gift to Bela; this is the last big role he never got the chance to play.”
He died in Los Angeles, California, where he was also buried in his Dracula costume, at the request of his son and his fourth wife, although it was believed that this had never been his own wish.
It is our pleasure to introduce you to a piece of history and to the people who left their mark on Subotica and gave it something extra – some of them here, and some, like Bela Lugosi, far across the ocean.
Source:
www.gradsubotica.co.rs
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Prepared by Kristifor Bogdanić