Bela Lugosi

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. Martin is a member of Mensa International. He was also the subject of a song by gothic rock band Bauhaus entitled "Bela Lugosi's Dead". Martin's personal collection has at one time included the art of O'Keeffe, Twachtman, Diebenkorn, de Kooning, Kline, Twombly, Frankenthaler, Hopper, Hockney, Lichtenstein, and Picasso. Instead he was listed as a guest-star, below Tor Johnson, Vampira and Kenne Duncan. Martin is also an avid art collector, particularly modern American art, and a trustee of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Contrary to Burton's Ed Wood, Lugosi did not receive top billing for Plan 9. In 2002, Martin adapted the Carl Sternheim play The Underpants, which ran Off-Broadway at Classic Stage Company.

Wood hired his wife's chiropractor to double for Lugosi, who is easily spotted by the fact that. In 2001, Martin hosted the 73rd Annual Academy Awards. However, Lugosi died three years before the funding came through (from the Baptist Church of Beverly Hills, no less). In 1993, Martin wrote the play Picasso at the Lapin Agile, which had a successful run in several American cities. Wood had had great difficulty in financing the project, and was only able to shoot short, silent scenes that he planned to incorporate into the whole of the film once he had found the remainder of his funding. He appeared in a version of Waiting for Godot as Vladimir (with Robin Williams as Estragon). Ed Wood's Plan 9 from Outer Space featured footage of Lugosi interspersed with a double who looked nothing like him. They later appeared in the collection Pure Drivel.

One of Lugosi's most infamous roles was in a movie that was released after he was dead. Throughout the 90s, after Tina Brown took over The New Yorker, Martin wrote various pieces for the magazine. (The role was later given to Kenne Duncan, and the shots of that production made their way into Wood's Night of the Ghouls, a sequel of sorts to Wood's previous Lugosi films.). In 1999, Martin and Goldie Hawn starred in a remake of the 1970 Neil Simon comedy, The Out-of-Towners. The script for Final Curtain, written by Ed Wood, was in his lap. Martin starred in the Ron Howard film, Parenthood in 1989. He died of a heart attack, aged 73, in Los Angeles, California, while sitting in a chair. That same year, Roxanne, a film he cowrote, won him a Writers Guild of America award and more importantly, the recognition from Hollywood and the public that he was more than a comedian.

Because Lugosi appeared in B-Movies, he was featured in several episodes of the television series Mystery Science Theater 3000, most notably, Bride of the Monster. In 1987, Martin joined comedian John Candy in the John Hughes film, Planes, Trains and Automobiles. The biographical film Ed Wood, by Tim Burton, portrayed Wood's relationship with Lugosi, who was played by Martin Landau. It was originally entitled The Three Caballeros and Martin was to be teamed with Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi. 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 — such as Glen or Glenda — in which such a role made no sense. In 1986, Martin joined fellow Saturday Night Live veterans Martin Short and Chevy Chase in Three Amigos!, which was directed by John Landis, and written by Martin, Lorne Michaels and Randy Newman. Late in his life, he again got to star in movies, albeit lousy ones. Martin was in two more Reiner-directed comedies after The Jerk: Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid in 1982, and The Man with Two Brains in 1983.

Later on, the acting jobs dried up and he became addicted to morphine, though he did get to recreate the role of Dracula one last time for the film Bud Abbott and Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein in 1948. The film was a financial failure; Martin's comment at the time was "I don't know what to blame, other than it's me and not a comedy.". Lugosi's attitude towards Karloff is the subject of contradictory reports, some claiming he was openly resentful of Karloff's long-term success and ability to get good roles beyond the horror arena, while others suggested the two actors were - for a time at least - good friends. To prepare for that film, he took acting lessons from the director, Herbert Ross, and spent months learning how to tap dance. Several films, such as The Black Cat and the aforementioned Son of Frankenstein paired Lugosi with his chief rival in the realm of horror movies, Boris Karloff. It emboldened him to try his hand at his first serious film, Pennies From Heaven, a movie he was anxious to do because of the desire to avoid being typecast. He also had a small role in the comedy classic Ninotchka opposite Greta Garbo. He was executive producer for a prime-time TV series starring Martin Mull and a late-night series called Twilight Theater.

He declined an offer to appear as The Monster in Frankenstein but made an impression as the insane Ygor in two sequels, Son of Frankenstein and Ghost of Frankenstein before finally consenting to play the creature in Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man. Stanley Kubrick met with him to discuss him starring in an early, screwball comedy version of Traumnovelle (Kubrick later changed his approach to the material). The film was a success, but Lugosi was typecast as a horror heavy with such movies as White Zombie and Scared to Death. The success of The Jerk opened more doors for him. He was most famous for his title role in Tod Browning's Dracula (1931) (building on the stage role). The movie was a huge success, grossing $100 million on a budget less than a twentieth of that amount. He left from his native Hungary for Germany in 1919 after persecution following his complicity in the forming of an actor's union, and emigrated to the United States in 1921. In 1979, Martin wrote and starred in his first full-length movie, The Jerk, directed by Carl Reiner.

During World War I he served as an infantry lieutenant for the Central Powers. The film was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Short Film, Live Action. He however, became most notably known for his portrayal of Dracula in a stage production of Bram Stoker's classic vampire story. The seven-minute long film was written by and starred Martin. Lugosi started his acting career on the stage in Europe in several Shakespearean plays. Martin's first film was a short, The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977). He was born in Lugos, Transylvania, Austria-Hungary (now Lugoj, Romania), the youngest of four children of a banker. His real goal was to get into film.

Béla Lugosi was the stage name of actor Blaskó Béla Ferenc Dezső (October 20, 1882–August 16, 1956). But unknown to his audience, stand-up comedy was "just an accident" for him. He covers his face with his cape in every shot. By the end of the 1970s, he had acquired the kind of following normally reserved for rock stars, with his tour appearances typically occurring at sold-out arenas filled with tens of thousands of screaming fans. He looks nothing like Lugosi.
. A typical gag might be interrupted for a sip from a glass of water, and just as he was about to speak again, he forcefully spits the water onto the floor.

His style is off kilter and ironic, and sometimes makes fun of stand-up comedy traditions. It mixes philosophical riffs with sudden spurts of "happy feet", deft banjo playing with balloon depictions of concepts like venereal disease. In these and his two other albums, Martin's stand-up comedy was self-referential, sometimes self-mocking. Both albums won Grammys for Best Comedy Recording in 1977 and 1978.

Both were million sellers. A top 40 hit King Tut, from the album, released in 1978, was backed by the Toot Uncommons (better known as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band). His next album, A Wild and Crazy Guy, was an even bigger success reaching the number two spot on the chart, and spawning another catch phrase, this time based on an SNL skit where Martin and Dan Aykroyd played a couple of bumbling Czechoslovakian playboys. The album was a huge success; one of its tracks, Excuse Me, helped establish a national catch phrase.

That exposure, together with appearances on NBC's Saturday Night Live (SNL), led to his first of four comedy albums, Let's Get Small. In the mid-1970s he made frequent appearances as a stand-up comedian on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. He continued to write, earning an Emmy nomination for his work on Van Dyke and Company in 1975. He appeared at San Francisco's The Boarding House among other locations.

He then started performing his own material, sometimes as an opening act for groups such as the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band and Carpenters, and sometimes appearing on camera:. Martin also wrote for John Denver (a neighbor of his in Aspen, Colorado at one point) and The Glen Campbell Goodtime Hour. Martin, along with the other writers for that show, won an Emmy Award in 1969. A girlfriend helped him get his first real job in 1967, as a comedy writer on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, the show she was on as a dancer.

Nevertheless, his time there changed his life:. Martin majored in philosophy at California State University, Long Beach, but dropped out. Martin worked at the Bird Cage Theater in Knott's Berry Farm and at the Magic Shop at Disneyland as a teenager, where he developed his talents for magic, juggling, playing the banjo and creating balloon animals. Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, musician and composer born in Waco, Texas and raised in Orange County, California.

Looney Tunes: Back In Action (2003). Cheaper by the Dozen (2003). Bringing Down the House (2003). Rutles 2: Can't Buy Me Lunch (2002, TV).

Novocaine (2001). Fantasia 2000 (1999) host. Bowfinger (1999). The Out-of-Towners, (1999).

The Prince of Egypt (1998, voice). The Spanish Prisoner (1997). Bilko (1996). Sgt.

HouseSitter (1992). Grand Canyon (1991). Father of the Bride (1991). Story (1991), also written by Martin.

L.A. My Blue Heaven (1990). Parenthood (1989). Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988).

Pennies from Heaven (1981). The Jerk, (1979) also co-written by Martin. The Muppet Movie (1979). Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, (1978).

Sgt. The Absent-Minded Waiter (1977) (short). The Steve Martin Brothers (1981). Comedy is Not Pretty! (1979).

Shopgirl (2001). Pure Drivel (1998). Story and Roxanne: Two Screenplays (1997). L.A.