Becoming Dracula

The cobwebs of time and space are finally cleared. Drawing on years of researchacross four countries, excavating and analyzing thousands of yellowed documentsin archives as well as every digitized source, Gary D. Rhodes and Bill Kaffenbergershine light from their candelabrum onto a long-forgotten past, onto the creationof a legend. Becoming Dracula is a two-volume biography covering Bela Lugosi's lifefrom his birth to 1930, when he first played the famous vampire on screen. By presenting a staggering wealth of well researched details, Gary D. Rhodes and BillKaffenberger create not only the context but the humanity of Lugosi becoming Dracula. Theirportrait-in-words is nuanced, revealing and sympathetic, but still preserves the mystery andmajesty of this most charismatic of actors. They introduce the reader to the Hungarian-Americansubculture in which Lugosi found himself when he arrived on the shores of the United States.Lugosi was initially the big fish in that small pond, but the authors portray his emergence intothe vast ocean of Broadway and Hollywood and the fascination Lugosi created with his uniquepresence there. - Steve Haberman, screenwriter of Dracula: Dead and Loving It (1995) and author of Silent Screams: The History of the Silent Horror Film (Midnight Marquee, 2010)