Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), better known as Bela Lugosi, was a Hungarian-American actor, famous for portraying Count Dracula in the original 1931 film and for his roles in various other horror films.
He had been playing small parts on the stage in his native Hungary before making his first film in 1917, but had to leave the country after the failed Hungarian Communist Revolution of 1919. He had roles in several films in Weimar Germany before arriving in the United States as a seaman on a merchant ship.
In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. He later appeared in the classic 1931 film Dracula by Universal Pictures. Through the 1930s, he occupied an important niche in popular horror films, with their East European setting, but his Hungarian accent limited his repertoire, and he tried unsuccessfully to avoid typecasting.
Meanwhile, he was often paired with Boris Karloff, who was able to demand top billing. To his frustration, Lugosi was increasingly restricted to minor parts, kept employed by the studio principally for the sake of his name on the posters. Among his pairings with Karloff, only in The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), and Son of Frankenstein (1939) did he perform major roles again, and, even in The Raven, Karloff received top billing despite Lugosi performing the lead role. By this time, Lugosi had been receiving regular medication for sciatic neuritis, and he became addicted to morphine and methadone. This drug dependence was noted by producers, and the offers eventually dwindled down to a few parts in Ed Wood's low-budget movies, most notably Plan 9 from Outer Space.
"Bela Lugosi's Dead" is a song by English post-punk band Bauhaus. The song was the band's first single, released on 6 August 1979 by record label Small Wonder, and is often considered the first gothic rock record.
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The single featured the B-side "Boys" and some versions also include a portion of an early demo recording of what would be their next single, "Dark Entries".
The original sleeve art was taken from a still of the film The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. The writers listed on the single are Kevin Haskins, Peter Murphy, Daniel Ash and the band's bassist, David J (as David Haskins). David J, however, claims that he wrote them.
The song is over nine minutes in length and was recorded "live in the studio" in a single take. The vocals do not start (in the studio version) until several minutes into the track. The dub-influenced guitar sound was achieved by using partial barre chords and leaving the top E and B strings open.
The title referenced horror film star Bela Lugosi (1882–1956), who did much to establish the modern vampire image as the title character in the 1931 film Dracula, and who had been dead for over two decades when the song was written and recorded.
David John Haskins (born 24 April 1957, Northampton, England), better known as David J, is a British alternative rock musician, producer, and writer. He was the bassist for the gothic rock band Bauhaus and Love and Rockets.
He has composed the scores for a number of plays and films, and also wrote and directed his own play, Silver for Gold (The Odyssey of Edie Sedgwick), in 2008, which was restaged at REDCAT in Los Angeles in 2011, and The Chanteuse and The Devil's Muse, 2011. His artwork has been shown in galleries internationally, and he has been a resident DJ at venues such as the Knitting Factory.
David J has released a number of singles and solo albums, and in 1990 he released one of the first No. 1 hits on the newly created Modern Rock Tracks charts, with "I'll Be Your Chauffeur." He released the single "Tidal Wave of Blood" in 2010 with Shok, and he has a new album, An Eclipse of Ships, due out in April 2014. He is currently touring with his new band, The Gentleman Thieves.