Bela George Lugosi (born January 5, 1938) is an American attorney and the son of actor Béla Lugosi. His legal actions in Lugosi v. Universal Pictures led to the creation of the California Celebrities Rights Act. He is often referred to as Bela Lugosi Jr.
Lugosi attended the University of Southern California, where he received his B.S. in 1960 and LL.B. from its School of Law in 1964. He was admitted to the State Bar of California that year.[1]He practiced for much of his career at Hanna & Morton, a Los Angeles litigation boutique. For several years in the late 1990s and early 2000s, he was an executive at Comedy III Productions, the holding company founded by The Three Stooges.[2][3] He resigned from the Bar in 2018.[1] In 2022, he was inducted into the Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards' Monster Kid Hall of Fame.[4]
Lugosi met Nancy Beauchamp while both were students at Dorsey High School, marrying in 1957. The marriage lasted 64 years until her January 2022 death. He has four children, sons Greg, Jeff, Tim, and daughter Lynne Sparks, and seven grandchildren.[5]
Lugosi has been among those who felt filmmaker Edward D. Wood Jr. exploited his father's stardom, taking advantage of the fading actor when he could not refuse any work.[6] Most documents and interviews with other Wood associates in Nightmare of Ecstasy suggest that Wood and Lugosi were friends and that Wood helped Lugosi through the worst days of his depression and drug addiction.[7]
But an appeals court overturned that decision and finally in 1979, the California Supreme Court, in Lugosi v. Universal Pictures, ruled that Lugosi did not inherit any rights that Universal Pictures infringed. It said the Lugosi name and likeness could not pass on to the actor's heirs, since the right of publicity died with Lugosi. However, the California State Assembly passed a "Celebrities Rights Act" in 1985 which said that rights of publicity survive the celebrity's death and descend to heirs by wills, among other means.
Lugosi and the Stooges are represented by Los Angeles-based Comedy III Productions, which handles requests for merchandise or other tie-ins. "Lugosi as Dracula created a whole new genre in American film," says his son, Bela G. Lugosi, now a lawyer who owns the rights to his dad's name. "His image is recognized around the world." Lugosi also specialized in the representation of other heirs who seek protection from manufacturers who illegally profit from famous names.
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