Béla Ferenc DezsÅ Blaskó (Hungarian: [ËbeËlÉ ËfÉrÉntÍ¡s ËdÉÊÃ¸Ë ËblÉÊkoË]; October 20, 1882 â August 16, 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian and American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 English-language Dracula, Ygor in Son of Frankenstein (1939) and his roles in many other horror films from 1931 through 1956.
During World War I, he served as an infantryman in the Austro-Hungarian Army from 1914 to 1916, rising to the rank of Lieutenant. He was awarded the Wound Medal for wounds he sustained while serving on the Russian front. Returning to civilian life, Lugosi became an actor in Hungarian silent films, appearing in many of them under the stage name “Arisztid Olt”.
Due to his activism in the actors’ union in Hungary during the revolution of 1919 and his active participation in the Hungarian Soviet Republic, he was forced to flee his homeland when the government changed hands, initially accompanied by his first wife. He escaped to Vienna before settling in Berlin (in the Langestrasse), where he began acting in German silent films, while his wife left him and returned home to her parents where she filed for divorce. Lugosi eventually travelled to New Orleans, Louisiana in December, 1920 working as a crewman aboard a merchant ship, then made his way north to New York City, where he again took up acting in plays and in the New York film industry from 1923 to 1926. He later moved to Hollywood in 1928, where his film career took off. He eventually became a U.S. citizen in 1931, soon after the release of his signature film Dracula.
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