Béla Ferenc Dezső Blaskó (Hungarian: [ˈbeːlɒ ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈdɛʒøː ˈblɒʃkoː]; 20 October 1882 – 16 August 1956), known professionally as Bela Lugosi (/ləˈɡoʊsi/; Hungarian: [ˈluɡoʃi]), was a Hungarian-American actor best remembered for portraying Count Dracula in the 1931 film and for his roles in other horror films.

After playing small parts on the stage in his native Hungary, Lugosi gained his first role in a film in 1917. He acted in several films in Weimar Germany before arriving in the United States as a seaman on a merchant ship.
In 1927, he appeared as Count Dracula in a Broadway adaptation of Bram Stoker’s novel. He later appeared in the 1931 film Dracula directed by Tod Browning and produced by Universal Pictures. Through the 1930s, he occupied an important niche in horror films, with their East European setting, but his Hungarian accent limited his potential casting, and he unsuccessfully tried to avoid typecasting.