A runaway as a boy, he began his stage career in 1901, after studying at the Budapest Academy of Theatrical Arts, and earned his first film role - "A Leopard" (1917). He then left Hungary in 1919 when the communists gained political power, and went to Germany, where he again appeared in several films (incl. "Dr. Jekyll And Mr. Hyde", 1920). In 1921 he emigrated to the United States and made a living as a character actor, shooting to fame 1927 with the role of Count Dracula in the Broadway stage adaption of Bram Stoker's novel by Hamilton Deane and John Balderston. When Universal obtained the film rights to the play, they intended to cast Lon Chaney as the Count, but his unexpected death gave way for Lugosi and made him a star overnight. Unfortunately, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he accepted nearly any script in any low-budget production, and the typecasting doomed him to a lifetime of roles in movies of steadily diminishing quality, and he ended up as a morphine-addicted pauper during the shooting of "Plane 9 From Outer Space". He was buried in his full Dracula costume and cape. Short before his death he had bequeathed the ring, which had become a trademark of "his" Count, to a future Dracula actor, Christopher Lee. According to legend, Peter Lorre, at Lugosi's funeral, seeing him dressed in his cape, quipped to Vincent Price "Do you think we should drive a stake through his heart just in case?"