page_title: Bela Lugosi
section_title: Career decline
hierarchical_section_title: Bela Lugosi / Career / Career decline
caption_attribution_description: English: Bela Lugosi in "The Devil Bat" (1940), which is now in the public domain.
context_page_description: Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, known professionally as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian-American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 film and for his roles in other horror films.
  After playing small parts on the stage in his native Hungary, Lugosi gained his first role in a film in 1917. He had to leave the country after the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919 because of his socialist activism. He acted in several films in Weimar Germany before arriving in the United States as a seaman on a merchant ship.
  In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. He later appeared in the 1931 film Dracula directed by Tod Browning and produced by Universal Pictures. Through the 1930s, he occupied an important niche in horror films, with their East European setting, but his Hungarian accent limited his potential casting, and he unsuccessfully tried to avoid typecasting.
  Meanwhile, he was often paired with Boris Karloff, who was able to demand top billing.
context_section_description: A number of factors began to work against Lugosi's career in the mid-1930s. Universal changed management in 1936 and, because of a British ban on horror films, dropped them from their production schedule; Lugosi found himself consigned to Universal's non-horror B-film unit, at times in small roles where he was obviously used for "name value" only. Throughout the 1930s, Lugosi, experiencing a severe career decline despite popularity with audiences (Universal executives always preferred his rival Karloff), accepted many leading roles from independent producers like Nat Levine, Sol Lesser, and Sam Katzman. These low-budget thrillers indicate that Lugosi was much less discriminating than Karloff in selecting screen vehicles, but the exposure helped Lugosi financially if not artistically. Lugosi tried to keep busy with stage work, but had to borrow money from the Actors Fund of America to pay hospital bills when his only child, Bela George Lugosi, was born in 1938.
  Historian John McElwee reports, in his 2013 book Showmen, Sell It Hot!, that Bela Lugosi's popularity received a much-needed boost in August 1938, when California theater owner Emil Umann revived Dracula and Frankenstein as a special double feature. The combination was so successful that Umann scheduled extra shows to accommodate the capacity crowds, and invited Lugosi to appear in person, which thrilled new audiences that had never seen Lugosi's classic performance. "I owe it all to that little man at the Regina Theatre," said Lugosi of exhibitor Umann. "I was dead, and he brought me back to life." Universal took notice of the tremendous business and launched its own national re-release of the same two horror favorites. The studio then rehired Lugosi to star in new films.
  Universal cast Lugosi in Son of Frankenstein (1939), appearing in the character role of Ygor, a mad blacksmith with a broken neck, in heavy makeup and beard. The same year saw Lugosi making a rare appearance in an A-list motion picture: he was a stern Soviet commissar in the  Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer romantic comedy Ninotchka, starring Greta Garbo and directed by Ernst Lubitsch. Lugosi was quite effective in this prestigious character role and it could have been a turning point for the actor, but within the year, he was back on Hollywood's Poverty Row, playing leads for Sam Katzman. These horror, comedy and mystery B-films were released by Monogram Pictures. At Universal, he often received star billing for what amounted to a supporting part. Lugosi went to 20th Century-Fox for The Gorilla (1939), which had him playing straight man to Patsy Kelly and the Ritz Brothers.
  Ostensibly due to injuries received during military service, Lugosi developed severe, chronic sciatica. Though at first he was treated with benign pain remedies such as asparagus juice, doctors increased the medication to opiates. The growth of his dependence on opiates, particularly morphine and, after 1947 when it became available in America, methadone, was directly proportional to the dwindling of Lugosi's screen offers. He was finally cast in the role of Frankenstein's monster for Universal's Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man (1943), but Lugosi had no dialogue. Lugosi's voice had been dubbed over that of Lon Chaney Jr., from line readings at the end of The Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). Lugosi played Dracula for a second and last time on film in Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948).
  Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein was Bela Lugosi's last "A" movie. For the remainder of his life he appeared — less and less frequently — in obscure, forgettable, low-budget features. From 1947 to 1950, he performed in summer stock, often in productions of Dracula or Arsenic and Old Lace, and during the other parts of the year made personal appearances in a touring "spook show", and on early commercial television.
  In September 1949, Milton Berle invited Lugosi to appear in a sketch on Texaco Star Theatre. Lugosi memorized the script for the skit, but became confused on the air when Berle began to ad lib. His only television dramatic role was on 
caption: Lugosi in The Devil Bat (1940)
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