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Bela and Boris, the Monster Men
The actors who played the lead roles in “Dracula” and “Frankenstein”
As a kid growing up in the 1950s, I was enthralled by monsters. In fact, monsters were a big thing in the ’50s and ’60s. They were a welcome distraction from the very real Cold War fear of nuclear destruction. Back then, monsters starred in movies and television shows, infiltrated pop music (like the one-hit wonder, Monster Mash), and were featured in magazines.
One reason I loved monsters was that my birthday happened to be the day before Halloween — the time, of course when monsters were everywhere. Each year around Halloween, television stations would air several classic monster movies. The two that thrilled me the most were the original Dracula and Frankenstein.
Remarkably, these two movies were released in 1931, but they maintained their popularity for decades. Based on novels, the stories about a vampire and a creature created by a demented scientist were compelling. But it was the lead actors — Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff — who really crawled into your consciousness and scared the bejeebers out of you.
Bela and Boris didn’t just play Dracula and the Frankenstein monster respectively, they were Dracula and the Frankenstein monster. Without a doubt, Lugosi and Karloff each created two of the…