Bela Lugosi: The Power of Love

Tribute to Bela Lugosi. Frankie Goes to Hollywood sings The Power of Love. Béla Lugosi (20 October 1882 -- 16 August 1956) was a Hungarian actor of stage and screen. He was best known for playing Count Dracula in the Broadway play and subsequent film version. In the last years of his career he was featured in several of Ed Wood&low budget films. 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&novel. The Horace Liveright production was successful, running 261 performances before touring. He was soon called to Hollywood for character parts in early talkies. In 1929, Lugosi took his place in Hollywood society and scandal when he married wealthy San Francisco widow Beatrice Weeks, but she filed for divorce four months later. Weeks cited actress Clara Bow as the "other woman". Despite his critically acclaimed performance on stage, Lugosi was not the Universal Pictures first choice for the role of Dracula when the company optioned the rights to the Deane play and began production in 1930. A persistent rumor asserts that director Tod Browning&long-time collaborator Lon Chaney was Universal&first choice for the role, and that Lugosi was chosen only due to Chaney&death shortly before production. This is questionable, because Chaney had been under long-term contract to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer since 1925, and had negotiated a lucrative new contract just before his death. Chaney...