Today, I’d like to share some touching memories of Bela Lugosi from issue #104 of Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine, published in January of 1974.
The editor of Famous Monsters, Forrest J. Ackerman (“Forry” as he was known to friends) visited with Bela Lugosi a number of times throughout their lives.
During one of those visits, Lugosi pulled out an old Dracula cape and put it on, posing for photos. He told Ackerman that he dreamed of a Hollywood comeback. Lugosi hoped to reprise the role of Dracula one last time, in color and in stereophonic sound, to serve as the final, definitive version of Dracula. Lugosi even said he wished it to be filmed in 3D so that the audience could see bats flying toward them.
Of course, Lugosi’s struggles with addiction prevented the star from realizing that comeback. Lugosi suffered severe pain from sciatic nerve damage for 8 years. His doctors prescribed pain killers (specifically morphine and methadone), which eventually lost their effect – necessitating higher and higher dosages. Lugosi ultimately became addicted and developed a 20 year drug habit. He spent a year trying to wean himself off the drugs – including checking himself into a rehabilitation clinic at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, California.
Perhaps as compensation for the reduction in the drugs, Lugosi became a heavy cigar smoker toward the end of his life. Ackerman said that he smoked so much that, at the premiere of The Black Sleep (1956), Lugosi sat up in the balcony so that he could puff away throughout the show. Ackerman sat on one side of Lugosi and a young assistant on the other. According to Ackerman, Lugosi should have been wearing eye glasses at that point in his life, but pride got in the way, resulting in the world looking to Lugosi as a great blur. At one point, Lugosi required help from the men to walk without stumbling into anything.
Even in these last years, the presence of a camera had a transformative, invigorating effect on the actor. Despite his poor health and eyesight, Lugosi would straighten up tall and proud to deliver the most vibrant performance he could.
The last of Ackerman’s visits with Lugosi took place just two weeks before the iconic actor’s passing. As a kid, Forry had enjoyed Lugosi in Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932). He realized during his visit with Lugosi that the aged gentleman had gone “quite deaf”. But, Ackerman put a record on for Lugosi to hear with Lugosi’s own voice from Rue Morgue reciting the line:
“My name is Dr. Mirakle and I am not a sideshow charlatan. So if you’re looking for the usual hocus pocus, just go to the box office and get your money back.”
Lugosi was gleeful at hearing his old performance.
That was the last time Ackerman saw Lugosi alive. He died at 73 years old from heart failure at 6:45 pm on August 16, 1956. His fifth wife, Hope, discovered her body after returning home from work. His passing was significant enough for reporters to race to his apartment at 5620 Harold Way in Los Angeles to snap a photo of his body being removed from the home.
Sadly, Hope reported that:
“He was terrified of death. Towards the end he was very weary, but he was still afraid of death. Three nights before he died he was sitting on the edge of the bed. I asked him if he were still afraid to die. He told me that he was. I did my best to comfort him, but you might as well save your breath with people like that. They’re still going to be afraid of death.”
Lugosi’s family respected Bela’s wish to be buried in his Dracula costume.
LONG LIVE THE KING OF THE VAMPIRES.
