Celebrity Graveland

October 20, 1882 – August  16, 1956

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó was born in Lugos, Hungary (now, Romania) in 1882. He acted on stage and in films in his native country before fleeing to Germany, and eventually, the U.S.A. He changed is name to Lugosi (after his hometown) and made a career of playing one of the most recognizable monsters in pop culture history. As far as I am concerned, Bela Lugosi – with his eastern European accent and steely glare – WAS Count Dracula. You can’t convince me otherwise (except for the fact that he is dead, as evidenced by his presence in this blog – though he WAS buried in a cape¹.)

Either way, Lugosi had an uneven career that saw fame and leading roles give way to token appearances and bit parts. He famously appeared opposite Boris Karloff (whom I am also convinced WAS Frankenstein’s monster) in a number of horror films. These films saw Karloff constantly stealing the spotlight and billing from a now waning Lugosi. Later in his life, his career was somewhat resurrected by filmmaker, Ed Wood, who cast Lugosi in the kind of epically terrible movies that live on today as cult classics.

Finally, if Bela Lugosi was a vampire, then he was a vampire with a drug problem. And a heart problem. Lugosi died of a heart attack on his couch at the age of 73.

Burial

Holy Cross Cemetery – Culver City, CA

Specific Location

Grotto, L120, 1; 4 rows south of the Grotto, about 10 spaces in from the eastern curb, 5 spaces to the east of Bing Crosby.

¹ – SEE!!!!!

This entry was posted on October 1, 2013 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Holy Cross Cemetery with tags Actors, Holy Cross Cemetery (CA). You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.