Bela Lugosi- The Undead
Forever Dracula, undead, undead, undead.
Honoring the forever vampire’s mortal birthday, October 20th. For good or bad, I explore Bela Lugosi’s natal planetary placements that may have attributed to the archetypal role of Dracula sinking his teeth in and never letting go.
On October 20,1882, Bela Ferenc Dezso Blasko, better known as Bela Lugosi, was born. Hungarian native, an actor who is best known for his many roles in the early horror films, including Count Dracula in the 1931 film Dracula. He had his start in the early silent films in Hungary, eventually making his way into the talkies and to the United States, where his ultimate notoriety would be the gothic vampire.
Born as a Pisces Rising, ruled by an exalted Jupiter in Cancer in the fifth house of creativity and passion, this would be a guiding planet in his chart when it came to his focused, unfettered aim to be a star. Sagittarius rules his tenth house of public persona and how he shines in the public eye and on stage. Sagittarius is also ruled by Jupiter, and this is a sign that dreams big and tries to travel far beyond the boundaries set. Venus, the artist, the lover, lives in Sagittarius, aspecting his ascendant degree of self-hood, by a square. This aspect forever locking him into roles that are based on his voice and looks alone. Bela moved a lot in his early years before settling into California, we can see this as Jupiter seeks to blur native boundaries and immigrants into two other countries.
Growing up quick, he dropped out of school at age 12 and worked various manual labor jobs. He fought in World War I and received a war injury and medal that would release him from service. After the war, he found his way on stage and performing in silent films in Hungary. He was forced to leaved his homeland due to the unstable new government and emigrated to Germany, continuing there as a silent film actor.
Lugosi’s Big Three: Jupiter Rising, Libra Sun, Aquarius Moon
His early years can be found in his third house of Taurus, a fixed earth sign where Saturn and the South Node live, as do the outer planets Neptune and Pluto. Saturn in his third house of local community and early school year can be expressed in his dropping out of school, taking on early responsibilities and his forced exile from his home country. Neptune and Pluto, though outer planets, can add the flavor of confusion and death and rebirth, having to start over elsewhere. By 1920, he had made his way to the United States and in 1931 he officially became a US citzen. Early US career he worked again doing manual trade, a very strong signature of Saturn in the earth sign of Taurus, and also formed a small acting company with other Hungarian immigrants.
In 1927 his fate changed and he toured the Broadway Theater production of Dracula. He then began receiving other smaller roles that were both silent and talkies, with the characters always centered around exotic characters with thick accents. When Universal Pictures started casting for the onscreen role of Dracula, oddly enough Lugosi was not the first choice, not by far. After rolling through various other “first” picks, eager Lugosi received the role and yet did not get paid well for it. This role would sink its own fangs into Lugosi’s identity in the horror film genre, and it would be hard for him to pickup any other role from here on out. We can see this upgrade to talkies and to where his role in the US films began picking up speed and notoriety in his ninth house, this is the house of foreign lands, higher education, and philosophy.
Scorpio, the dark brooding water sign ruled by Mars, leads the ninth house. Lugosi has Mars natally in his chart in Scorpio, this adds a lot of strength and reflects the character he will tend to play, dark, gothic, hauntingly otheworldly roles that emit emotional horror and insecurity in the viewers. The archetype of the vampire, sharp-tooth monster with insatiable bloodlust to stay alive, could not be better signified by Mars in Scorpio. Signified by a warring god and a heavily armored scorpion, both wielding sharp, pointy weapons that possess one purpose, bloodletting to point of death. Lugosi also has Mercury here, a focus on communication and speech, ruling how he communicates and a direct connection that his higher learning is the stage and film realm. From silent films to talking films, he crossed both worlds. Mercury and Mars both living in Scorpio can highly signify his ongoing constant roles centered around the gothic monsters, the mad scientists. Mercury is also making a square to his Aquarius Moon in the twelfth house- a liminal space, one of shadows, one of isolation. This Aquarius Moon aspecting both Merury and Mars by square reveal literal and metaphorical alignments in Lugosi’s life. The Aquarius Moon squaring both these planets display the tension that he experiences with being the outsider or foreigner, constrained by broken English and thick accents that keep him from breaking out of certain roles. The twelfth house Aquarian Moon can be seen as the black sheep who always feels to be sitting in the shadows or on the outside. His last film he made was called “The Black Sheep”. The roles he assumed were also characters who were misunderstood, sat outside the norms of culture, eccentric and wild.
It would be his thick Hungarian accent and inability to speak clear, that would keep him typecast and locked into specific roles, including monsters and villains in horror films, like Dracula or Wolf Man. This would ultimately lead to great frustration for the actor and coupled with addiction, he would struggle to break-out of the prescribed horror roles and find himself in cycles of poverty and addiction.
Lugosi was born with the Sun in Libra in the eighth house. This house deals with themes of death, others esteem, and debts (finanically and karmically). His whole life would ebb and flow between limited success and poverty, battling others perceptions and in turn creating insecurities that would lead down roads of addiction. Roles he would assume would always be centered around those of characters that live outside this world, or in the underworld and liminal spaces, both signified by the Sun and the Moon in more challenging, otherworldly houses. Lugosi had a chronic pain issue due to his war injury which not only led him to be in constant agony, but morphine entered public consumption, and this too would be a hang-up that would keep him from moving forward successfully both onscreen and off. Addiction in his chart can be viewed through Jupiter exalted in Cancer in the fifth house, making him a hungry vampire craving more, lacking guardrails. The Moon in the twelfth can also speak to an isolated environment of emotional and physical pain, seeking comfort, yet aspected by intense Mars and Mercury and nodes, increasing the need for escapism through alcohol and drugs.
Lugosi’s career would ebb and flow until his death. His role would always be around a monster or villian, and he would resurrect for a short while, then fall back into destituition. He had other dreams of more serious roles and even comedic, yet time and time again he found himself as the “boogie man”.
It would be in his later years, and his final years, that he returned to film. Ed Wood, a filmmaker who was breaking into the scene, took it upon himself to employ Bela, at a time where he was near poverty. He played a mad scientist in one film. After the film was released, Lugosi checked into rehab. After rehab, he made one final film, The Black Sheep. Though Lugosi dreamed of being a great star, his twelfth house Aquarian Moon, the black sheep of the chart, kept him locked out of ever feeling like he fit in. The Libra Sun sought balance in the eighth house, yet the scales were always lopsided, fulfilling only one type of role, the frightening outcast of society. Like the vampire that relies on the external nourishment of the living, Lugosi himself constantly sought the external energy of film accolades and achievment that constantly fell short, leading him into deeper pain cycles of addictions and broken marriages.
Even in death, Lugosi couldn’t break the typecast, he was buried in one of his many Dracula capes. He passed away not too long after a lunar eclipse occured over his natal Venus in the tenth house, his creative, artistic public spotlight signature. Saturn was just preparing to leave the ninth house, Mars and Jupiter were in oppposition along the sixth and twelfth axis of body and mind health, and Jupiter was also forming a conjunction with Pluto, the god of the underworld during the eclipse in his house of health. The day of his death, August 16th, 1956 at 6:45 pm, he passed away just as the Sun was moving into a conjunction with Pluto in Leo, his sixth house. The Sun and Hades had finally met. Bela Lugosi’s dead. Undead. Undead. Undead.