“Karloff did not deserve to smell my shit.” – Martin Landau as Bela Lugosi, Ed Wood.
One of the things Tim Burton’s Ed Wood touched upon was the relationship between horror icons Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff, and like mostly everything Burton brought to the screen in the 1994 film, that particular subplot had much basis in reality. Along with the 1931 releases of both Dracula and Frankenstein, Lugosi and Karloff both became household names, but in the wake of their initial success, it was Karloff who went on to be the bigger star.
Lugosi, well, he wasn’t exactly happy about that.
After playing Dracula, Universal offered the role of the bolt-necked monster to Bela Lugosi, but the actor turned it down on the grounds that he was above being covered in makeup to the point of being completely unrecognizable. With Lugosi out, Karloff stepped in, taking over the role Lugosi turned down and, as a result, becoming an even brighter Hollywood star than Lugosi.
And that’s just the beginning of a rivalry that lasted until the day Bela Lugosi died. But rather than me telling you the story, I wanted to share with you a vintage mini-doc that covers the Lugosi-Karloff rivalry in great detail. The fascinating doc was released on VHS back in the ’90s, and I tracked it down on YouTube in its entirety.
A fitting watch today of all days, as Bela Lugosi was born on this day in 1882!
