Bela Lugosi was the stage name of Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (b. October 20, 1882 in Lugos, Transylvania, Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania) d. August 16, 1956 in Los Angeles, California).
Lugosi started his acting career on the stage in Europe, most notably known for his portrayal of Dracula in a stage production of Bram Stoker's classic vampire story.
He was most famous for his title role in Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) (building on the stage role). The film was a success, but Lugosi was typecast as a horror heavy with such movies as White Zombie and Scared to Death. Later on, the acting jobs dried up and he became addicted to morphine.
Late in his life, he again got to star in movies, albeit lousy ones. Ed Wood, a long-time fan of Lugosi's, offered him numerous roles in his films, always playing some variant of a mad scientist/vampire type, even in movies in which such a role made no sense -- such as Glen or Glenda. The biographical film Ed Wood, by Tim Burton, portrayed Wood's relationship with Lugosi, who was played by Martin Landau.
One of Lugosi's most infamous roles was in a movie that was released after he was dead. Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space featured footage of Lugosi -- who died during filming -- interspersed with a double who looked nothing like him, and Lugosi got top billing for the movie.
He was also the subject of a song by gothic rock band Bauhaus entitled Bela Lugosi's Dead.
Truth being stranger than fiction sometimes, Bela Lugosi was buried in his full Dracula costume, as per the request in his will, in the Holy Cross Cemetery in Culver City, California.
