Heritage is auctioning an item that holds a tremendous amount of left of
center Hollywood importance. Bela Lugosi is known by millions upon millions for
his portrayal of Count Dracula. However, by the time of his passing (fifty years
ago), he was down on his luck and working with the famed director of what many
consider to be Hollywood’s worst movies ever, Ed Wood JR. Heritage will be
auctioning the Funeral Book signed by the mourners at Lugosi’s wake. The item
will be part of Heritage’s Music Memorabilia Auction to be held on April 14-15,
2006 in Dallas, TX.

A stage star in his native Hungary (where he played
Romeo and Jesus Christ among other roles), Lugosi came to America in 1920. He
rose to fame in 1931 with Universal’s film of Dracula.

“His success as
The Count was a double-edged sword, however,” said Doug Norwine, Director of
Entertainment Memorabilia Auctions for Heritage Auction Galleries in a press
release. “The same role that made him a star also typecast him. Lugosi did
memorable work in such films as The Black Cat (1934) and The Raven (1935), with
horror rival Boris Karloff, but, in time, alcohol, a succession of failed
marriages, and the ravages of an increasingly insidious drug addiction took
their toll. Lugosi had to be content with such forgettable fare as Bela Lugosi
Meets a Brooklyn Gorilla (1952), The Black Sleep (1956), and several films for
the infamous Ed Wood, including Glen or Glenda (1953), Bride of the Monster
(1955), and the posthumously-released Plan Nine from Outer Space
(1959).”

“Plan Nine was to be Lugosi’s last film,” Norwine said. “In
fact, Bela died just a few days after shooting began, on August 16, 1956. Wood
completed the film using his chiropractor to double for Lugosi, leaving only a
few shots of a weary-looking Bela as a sad last tribute to a great
actor.”

“As befitted the legendary Count Dracula, Lugosi’s final
appearance on this earth was handled with the star’s customary panache and
aplomb,” Norwine said. “As he had requested, he was laid to rest wearing his
Dracula cape, tuxedo and medallion. It was a morbidly poetic flourish that
blended legend, fantasy and reality – a touching finale to Lugosi’s
life.”

The folks who attended his funeral and wake are legendary in their
own way. Included in this one-of-a-kind volume are signatures of such luminaries
as director Ed Wood, Jr., Tor Johnson, the former Swedish wrestler and star of
Plan Nine… and Bride of the Monster, Paul Marco (‘Kelton the Cop’), George
Weiss (producer of Glen or Glenda), Conrad Brooks (policeman Jamie in Plan 9…
), Dudley Manlove (‘Eros’ of Plan 9…), ‘L. King’ (presumably Loretta King,
leading lady of Bride of the Monster), Kathleen Wood (Ed’s wife), and Norma E.
McCarty (Ed’s ex-wife, who had annulled the marriage after learning he was a
transvestite, and who acted for him in Plan 9…). Additional signers include
Duci di Kerekjarto (longtime Lugosi friend, who played violin tribute at the
funeral), directors Steve Sekely and Zoltan Korda, Manly P. Hall (who supposedly
hypnotized Lugosi for a scene in 1940s Black Friday,) Mr. and Mrs. Robert Boyle
(he was associate art decorator on Lugosi’s The Wolf Man), Scotty Beal
(assistant director on the Lugosi films Dracula, Murders in the Rue Morgue, and
The Raven), Don Marlowe (Lugosi agent and hanger-on) and Forrest J. Ackerman
(longtime editor of Famous Monsters of Filmland).

“We also include a
pallbearer’s card from Richard Sheffield, Jr., teenage friend and fan of
Lugosi,” Norwine said. “The original paperbound funeral book comes in a
beautiful custom black leather case with gold lettering, which the consignor had
especially created for the book after receiving it from Lugosi’s widow, who died
in 1997. Over the past half-century, the Strother Mortuary which had conducted
Lugosi’s funeral has fallen to the wrecking ball, and Lugosi’s caped corpse has
long rested (presumably!) at Holy Cross Cemetery in Los Angeles. The funeral
book survives, a remarkable curio, intimately linked to the ‘undead’ Lugosi and
a strikingly dramatic relic of true Hollywood Gothic.”

Heritage Auction
Galleries will offer The Bela Lugosi Funeral Book and Pallbearers Card with a
Custom Leather Case in their upcoming Music and Wntertainment Signature auction,
to be held April 14 & 15, 2006 at their headquarters in Dallas, TX.
Information on the auction can be found at http://www.heritageauctions.com/default.php.