The Tragic Real-Life Story Of Bela Lugosi

Having spent a year acting in silent films in Germany's Weimar Republic, Lugosi traveled to America on a merchant ship in 1920, landing in New Orleans before heading north to New York City. He didn't know a word of English at the time, but that didn't stop him from auditioning, and, two years after his arrival in the States, he was cast in the play, The Red Poppy. It was his first English-speaking role. According to SyFy Wire, he learned the language bit by bit, role by role, reading his lines out loud to himself. 

In 1927, he got his big break. The biggest break, really. Following a successful run as Count Dracula in the stage version of Bram Stoker's bloody tale, Lugosi was cast as the lead in the film adaptation. The fact that he was born just 50 miles from where the novel is set made him a natural choice for the part. He wasn't Universal Pictures' first choice, though. That honor went to Lon Cheney. Then Cheney died, and Lugosi replaced him on the bill. 

It was both the fulfillment of a dream for Lugosi and, as this look at his career in Naked History suggests, the beginning of a nightmare. Following the blockbuster release of Dracula in 1931, the striving and serious actor from Transylvania would find himself typecast again and again by Hollywood, passed over for more meaty roles and given, almost without fail, the part of the cheesy villain.