HUNGARIAN STUDIES 11. No. 1. Nemzetközi Magyar ... - EPA

122 KEVIN E. KELLYboth his and Deane's names as co-authors. Lugosi, already somewhat knownas a specialist in foreign types, was chosen for the role. 27Dracula was Lugosi's longest-lasting theatrical vehicle - and the beginningof the end of his career as versatile actor. Over the next two years, more peoplethan he ever imagined saw him as the demonic count, first in the original NewYork run and later on the road. While in the play his appearances are few,Lugosi made them count with an unusual concentration on the role, anabsorption which caused him, in his own words, to work at a "fever pitch... Isat in my dressing room and took on, as nearly as possible, the actualattributes of this horrible vampire, Dracula... I was under a veritable spellwhich I dared not break. If I stepped out of my character for a moment... myhold on the audience lost its force." 28The effort, however, paid off in excellent business for the play, raves fromthe critics and sudden notoriety for Lugosi, already a proven character actorbut largely unknown to many audiences. Caught up in the publicity machinesurrounding the show, Lugosi boasted that most of his fan mail came fromwomen due to a certain romantic flavor - as well as the intensity - he broughtto the role. "Women wrote me letters... of a horrible hunger. Asking me if Ihad done the play because I was in reality that sort of Thing," he gushed inone interview. 29 The play had been accompanied by a number of publicitygimmicks and Lugosi wasn't above joining in the hoopla if it would increasebusiness for the show. 30Dracula eventually toured the West Coast and in 1928 Lugosi made his firstappearance in a Hollywood film. While American film production had startedin the New York area at the turn of the century and remained based there forquite some time, the suburb of Los Angeles known as Hollywood hadthroughout the 1910s and 1920s replaced New York as the nation's filmcapital. 31 Lugosi's first American film, The Silent Command (1923), and severalsubsequent films, were produced in New York during lulls between theatricalengagements. Sunny California seemed an unlikely place to set the shadowy,fog-shrouded atmospherics of Dracula - a film adaptation had been discussedas early as 1927 - but art direction, visual expertise and all of the othercategories of what became known as "movie magic" were sufficiently developedby the late 1920s to make the Rocky Mountains resemble Transylvania, anda studio lot a dark London street.Lugosi's reputation as the stage Dracula translated into some meaty partsat the major studios, and with the introduction of sound to films at the timehe arrived in Hollywood, his stock was actually boosted, for his heavy accentwas suitable for Continental parts as well as ethnic characterizations. Overall,his unique, portentous voice, coupled with a preference for ominous pauses in