August 16

Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó, known professionally as Bela Lugosi, died after suffering a heart attack on the 16th in 1956. He was an actor perhaps best known for his portrayal of the title character in both the stage production and the film adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel Dracula. Lugosi’s career had been hampered by the close identification he had with the Dracula character. His sudden, unexpected, death did not hinder his film career as much as one might think however. Mr. Lugosi gave a riveting post-mortem performance in Ed Wood’s movie Plan 9 From Outer Space, arguably the worst movie ever made. Lugosi died in the midst of filming this marvel of bad movie making and an actor bearing absolutely no similarity, either in height or appearance, to Lugosi was hired to film the scenes left remaining after Lugosi’s death.