ICON of HORROR: October 3rd

The Icon of Horror for October 3rd is..........................Bela Lugosi.

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), commonly known as Béla Lugosi, was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for having played Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version, as well as having starred in several of Ed Wood's low budget films in the last years of his career.

Lugosi, the youngest of four children, was born as Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó in Lugos (at the time part of Austria–Hungary, now Lugoj in Romania (Ironic wouldn't you say)), to Paula de Vojnich and István Blasko, a banker. He later based his last name on his hometown. At the age of 12, Lugosi dropped out of school to pursue acting and became independent. He worked in a mine and as a machinist while trying to find stage work.

Young Bela Lugosi

Due to his activism in the actors union in Hungary during the time of the Hungarian Revolution of 1919, he was forced to flee his homeland. He first went to Vienna, Austria, and then settled in Germany where he acted in his first film which was an early adaptation of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Lugosi left Germany in October 1920, intending to immigrate to the United States, and entered the country at New Orleans in December 1920. He made his way to New York and was legally inspected for immigration at Ellis Island in March 1921.

Lugosi was approached in the summer of 1927 to star in a Broadway production of Dracula adapted by Hamilton Deane and John L. Balderston from Bram Stoker's novel. He initially turned the role down but was asked to reconsider when the actor from the English production also turned it down, he accepted. The Horace Liveright production was successful, running 261 performances before touring. He was soon called to Hollywood for character parts in early talkies. Despite his critically acclaimed performance on stage, Lugosi was not Universal Pictures’ first choice for the role of Dracula when the company optioned the rights to the Deane play and began production in 1930. Director Tod Browning originally wanted Lon Chaney for the role, but Chaney died of throat cancer before any deal was made. Lugosi was still not the front runner for the role after Chaney's death, but knew he was destined for the part. So he proceeded to lobby for the role by barraging Universal's president with letters and telegrams, until he finally got the part.

When Lugosi first arrived in America he didn't speak English so when he took English speaking roles he would memorize his line phonetically, one syllable at a time. By the time Dracula came around he only spoke broken English and only learned to speak fluently about 2 years after Dracula.

After the success of Dracula, Universal went into production on Frankenstein and offered Lugosi the part. He would end up turning the role down to the fact that he was not happy with the idea of playing a part with no lines and covering his face with pounds of make-up. The role would end up going to Boris Karloff. This choice would send Lugosi career into a downward spiral as he was not giving a studio contract and was not considered big anymore. So Lugosi, afraid of repeating his Frankenstein mistake, took almost every role he was offered.

Late in his life, Bela Lugosi again received star billing in movies when filmmaker Ed Wood, a fan of Lugosi, found him living in obscurity and near-poverty and offered him roles in his films, such as Glen or Glenda and as a Dr. Frankenstein-like mad scientist in Bride of the Monster. During post-production of the latter, Lugosi decided to seek treatment for his drug addiction, and the premiere of the film was said to be intended to help pay for his hospital expenses. According to Kitty Kelley's biography of Frank Sinatra, when the entertainer heard of Lugosi's problems, he helped with expenses and visited at the hospital. Lugosi would recall his amazement, since he didn't even know Sinatra.

Lugosi died of a heart attack on August 16, 1956, while lying on a couch in his Los Angeles home. He was 73. Lugosi was buried wearing one of the Dracula Cape costumes in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Notable Roles:

Count Dracula - Dracula (1931)

'Murder' Legendre - White Zombie (1932)

Dr. Vitus Werdegast - The Black Cat (1934)

Ygor - Son of Frankenstein (1939)

Bela - The Wolfman (1941)

The Monster - Frankenstein meets the Wolfman (1943)

Count Dracula - Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein (1948)

Ghoul man - Plan 9 from outer Space (1958)

ICON of HORROR: October 2nd

The Icon of Horror for October 2nd is..........................Conrad Veidt.

Conrad Veidt (22 January 1893 – 3 April 1943) was a German actor who appeared in well over 100 films. In 1914 Veidt was drafted into the German Army during World War I. In 1915, Veidt was sent to the Eastern Front as a noncommissioned officer and took part in the Battle of Warsaw. He contracted jaundice and pneumonia, and had to be evacuated to a hospital on the Baltic Sea. As his condition had not improved, the army allowed him to join the theater so that he could entertain the troops. In late 1916, he was reexamined by the Army and deemed unfit for service; he was given a full discharge in January 1917. Veidt then returned to Berlin to pursue his acting career.

He appeared in two of the best-known films of the silent era: as a murderous somnambulist in director Robert Wiene's The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920) with Werner Krauss and Lil Dagover and as a disfigured circus performer in The Man Who Laughs (1928). According to the Los Angeles Times, "Conrad Veidt starred in this semi-silent film based on Victor Hugo's novel in which the son of a lord is punished for his father's disrespect to the king by having his face carved into a permanent grin." Veidt also starred in other classic silent horror films such a The Hands of Orlac in 1929 (again directed by Robert Weine), The Student of Prague in 1926 and Waxworks in 1924 where he played Ivan the Terrible.

Veidt also appeared in Magnus Hirschfeld's pioneering gay rights film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919), in which he played what is probably the first gay character written especially for the cinema, and in Das Land ohne Frauen (1929), Germany's first talking picture.
He moved to Hollywood and made a few films in the twenties but the advent of talking pictures and his broken English made him return to Germany. After a successful career in German silent film, where he was one of the best paid stars of Ufa, he left Germany in 1933 with his new Jewish wife and settled in the United Kingdom, where he participated in a number of films before continuing to the United States around 1941. When Britain went to war, Veidt (an anti-Nazi and British citizen) gave most of his estate to the war effort. He also donated a large portion of the salary from each of his movies to the British war relief, as well.

In the 1940s he moved back to Hollywood, California, and starred in a few films, such as Nazi Agent (1942), in which he had a dual role as a Nazi and as the Nazi's twin brother, but his best remembered role was as Major Heinrich Strasser in Casablanca (1942). He found himself invariably playing the very characters he detested.

He died of a heart attack while playing golf (8th hole) at the Riviera Country Club, Los Angeles, California. He was playing with Arthur Field of MGM and his personal physician, Dr. Bergman, who pronounced him dead at the scene.

Notable roles:
Ceasare - The Cabniet of Dr. Caligari (1920)
Orlac - The Hands of Orlac (1924)
Ivan the Terrible - Waxworks (1924)
Gwynplaine - The Man who Laughs (1928)
Major Heinrich Strasser - Casablanca (1942)

Trivia:
Bob Kane, creator of Batman, used Veidt's appearance in The Man Who Laughs (1928) as an early model on which to base the appearance of "The Joker".

He had long been known in German theatrical circles as a staunch anti-Nazi. His activities came under the scrutiny of the Gestapo, and a decision was made to assassinate him. Veidt found out about the plot, and managed to escape Germany before the Nazi death squad found him.
(February 4 2004) His daughter Vera Viola passed away from a heart attack in her sleep at her New Orleans apartment.

Personal Quotes
(1920s, to biographer Paul Ickes) What do you want? They'll just say, "He's only a movie actor!"
(about his role in A Woman's Face (1941)) I'm Lucifer in a tuxedo!

It is precisely as if I am possessed by some other spirit when I enter on a new task of acting, as though something within me presses a switch and my own consciousness merges into some other, greater, more vital being.
(on The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) No matter what roles I play, I can't get Caligari out of my system.

ICON of HORROR: October 1st

The Horror Icon for October 1st is..........................LON CHANEY SR.

Lon Chaney (April 1, 1883 – August 26, 1930), nicknamed "The Man of a Thousand Faces," was an American actor during the age of silent films. He was one of the most versatile and powerful actors of early cinema. He is best remembered for his characterizations of tortured, often grotesque and afflicted characters, and his groundbreaking artistry with film makeup.

Notable roles:

Quasimodo - "The Hunchback on Notre Dame" (1923)

Erik, The Phantom - "The Phantom of the Opera" (1925)

Professor/(or Inspector) Edward C. Burke/The Man in the Beaver Hat - "London After Midnight (A.K.A. The Hypnotist) (1927) (This is a lost film, The last known copy was destroyed in a fire in an MGM film vault in 1967. There has been rumors of prints still existing, but nothing official. This is known as the Holy Grail of Horror films)