Ed Wood Wednesdays, week 209: Ed and Bela ring in the new year

This kid knows how to have a good time, obviously.

Is New Year's Eve a big deal for you? It isn't for me. Neither is New Year's Day, though I'm happy to get some time off work for it. I've just never been big on celebrating the start of another year or lamenting the end of the previous one. Neither one means a thing to me.

Maybe it's because I don't drink. But you know who did? Edward D. Wood, Jr. I'm sure Eddie had a few eventful December 31sts along the way. Somehow, though, the holiday doesn't play a major role in his films or his writing as far as I can tell. The one major exception that comes to mind is an anecdote Ed included in his posthumously-published manifesto Hollywood Rat Race (1998). Today, I thought I'd share that anecdote in its entirety.

A little context: It's December 1953, and Eddie is trying to revive the career of his friend, actor Bela Lugosi. Putting the frail, 71-year-old actor in a play would be too demanding, Ed decides, so the best strategy will be for Bela to make personal appearances and meet his fans. But where? Well, I think I'll let Eddie take over the story from here.

Happy New Year, everybody!

At the time, I was presenting a western stage show, which had shown some minor success at motion picture theaters throughout the area, owned by Mr. Albert Stetson. It was then an inspiration hit me.

I mentioned to Mr. Stetson that Bela Lugosi had decided to go on tour and meet his public in person.

"What kind of an act does he have?"

There was the horrifying question again. "None."

What else could I have said?

Mr. Stetson's office was on a spacious, deeply carpeted, fashionably decorated mezzanine. His office was comparably small, but well decorated: carpeted, furnished, and cluttered with press books, newspaper clippings, motion picture ad sheets, and all that goes with his end of the business. Mr. Stetson, a trim, extremely well- dressed, bespectacled man wearing a bow tie, leaned forward across his desk. For a long moment it was apparent he was in deep thought. The he looked at me seriously.

He had an idea. And Mr. Stetson was ready to back up his idea with his own cold hard cash.

That plan went into its final stage—Bela Lugosi's personal appearance on the stage of Mr. Stetson's San Bernardino, California theater on the night of December 31, 1953. New Year's Eve.

Being the trooper he was, Bela made several trips from Hollywood to San Bernardino in the days before his appearance. He held press conferences, gave interviews over radio stations, and presided toastmaster at ladies clubs, men's organizations, and cocktail parties all to boost ticket sales and audience attendance.

Bela prized a photograph taken during this period. It was taken as he presented ticket to "admit one" to Mayor Blair, then mayor of San Bernardino. Bela felt the man was doing an excellent job for a worthwhile community. Bela had always been interested in communities across the world as well as the government in Washington itself. Never did he shy away from voicing his own opinions.

It was cold! Very cold! No rain was falling but a wet mist sat over the entire sixty-odd miles from Los Angeles to San Bernardino as Bela, his lovely assistant Miss Dolores Fuller (a motion picture actress in her own right), and myself made the journey to Mr. Stetson's theater for the night's entertainment. Mr. Stetson arranged comfortable suites at a leading hotel for both Bela and Miss Dolores before show time, but what Mr. Stetson had not mentioned was that there was to be little rest for either of them.

There was immediately another radio interview. More publicity photographs were again taken at the theater and then a final cocktail party for the press. It was designed along the lines of a Hollywood premiere but, thinking back, it grew into a much more heartwarming, rewarding experience.

The cocktail party progressed. Bela, who had always enjoyed his scotch and room temperature beer, refrained from even a cordial. But I could see he was getting extremely tired and nervous. It was six PM, and it was beginning to look as though the cocktail hour would go straight through the dinner hour and possibly beyond.

I found Mr. Stetson and his charming wife getting a breath of fresh air outside on the hotel patio. I admired Mrs. Stetson's green taffeta dress and exchanged a few pleasantries with her, then turned to Mr. Stetson. I wasn't harsh in my demands, but I was definite.

"If Bela is going to appear on your stage at ten nineteen, I think we'd better end this gathering now. He's answered hundreds of questions about Dracula and explained why he refused the part of the Frankenstein monster at least anther hundred times. He's not as young as Miss Fuller, you know."

Mr. Stetson's face changed noticeably. "It is getting a bit too much, isn't it?"

He went back into the room and made his short speech of dismissal to the assembly. A few minutes later, I was taking my friend Bela to his hotel suite. A fifth of scotch, a fifth of bourbon, and several bottles of room temperature beer had been provided for us on a portable bar.

I went immediately to the bar and poured myself a large whiskey, which I drank straight.

"Ready for one, Bela?"

He had not had a drink of anything stronger than coffee throughout the evening. "Not tonight, my friend. Is my full dress suit ready?"

"The bellboy is having it pressed. He'll have it here before show time."

"I'm becoming very nervous!"

"Haven't you ever been nervous before?"

"Every time I go before an audience... I want a drink!"

"It's right there." I pointed to the bar.

"I want a drink, Eddie. But not tonight. Not just now." He stretched his full length on the bed. Suddenly he snapped up again. "My cape is not being pressed."

"Just being steamed as you directed."

"Good." He went down again and was silent while I poured another whiskey. "Eddie... do you think they will like me tonight?" 

"They'll love you, Bela."

"Do you think I am doing enough for my public?" 

"Mr. Stetson does and he's the one paying the bills." 

He became more insistent. "But what do you think?"

"Let's put it this way, Bela. You need to meet the public. It's important to your career. I'm also sure the public wants to meet you. You don't sing. You don't dance. Let's just say, the idea is sound. And here we have a springboard to see what happens. As you said earlier, we have to start somewhere."

He thought a moment, then looked directly at me again. "So I am sandwiched between five features a gross of cartoons and a hundred-dollar bank night drawing. How are we to find out if it is me they come to see?"

What could I say? There really were five features, several cartoons, and a hundred-dollar bank night drawing. I repeated, "We have to start somewhere."

"I know, Eddie-I know." His eyes were closed, but it was apparent he was becoming more restless and more uncomfortable. "Miss Fuller is a lovely girl. She'll be an asset. Do you have a cigar?" "You know I never smoke cigars, Bela, look in your pocket!" "Oh, yes." He took out one of the extremely long cigars Mr. Stetson had presented to him, tipped off the end, and lighted it, before he spoke again. "I want to sleep for a while, after I take my medicine."

"Okay, Bela. I'll see you at nine-thirty."

He became very silent, letting tremendous clouds of gray cigar smoke drift up around his head. Those hypnotic eyes looked toward the green-gray ceiling.

I left the room at that point and paused long enough to light a cigarette. I think I heard a key turn in the lock. Bela, for the moment, demanded solitude even from his friends.

An ad for the show.

At nine PM, a reissue film starring Jon Hall entitled Arabian Nights was presented. The theater housed so few people you could shoot a canon off down the aisles without hitting a living soul.

Mr. Stetson was pacing the floor in his office. I was slumped in a chair just off the main lobby below the mezzanine. I wasn't happy about the attendance.

Then it happened! A newspaper man, slightly tipsy from the cocktail party given in Bela's honor, and his white-satin clothed wife, came into the theater with purchased tickets. He shouted to the doorman, "Where's Mr. Wood?"

Hearing this, I went to the man and his wife. "You want me?"

He stuck out his hand. "This better be you!" He scowled. "The show, I mean." Then he laughed. "I've got the power of the press behind me, you know."

That was all he said, then he and his wife moved on into the darkness of the theater. Possibly he was the Pied Piper of Hamelin, or it was mere coincidence. But something tremendous began to happen. The dispenser's bell began to ring as if by an incessant door-to-door salesman.

Mr. Stetson came out of his office. He looked down toward his ticket booth. The line outside was forming. I caught the broad grin on his features. He had made it. The girl in his ticket booth was spinning out tickets as fast as she could press the automatic buttons.

Then a sadness crossed his features. Mr. Stetson returned to his office. He closed the door. It was apparent that at that moment Mr. Stetson realized he had delivered the audience, but would the public get what they were paying for.

I was not able to meet Bela at nine-thirty. That duty fell to Miss Fuller and Mrs. Stetson. Fifteen minutes before Bela was to appear on stage, the police and fire departments arrived. The streets were clogged with traffic and surrounding parking lots were filled with cars. The theater box office displayed Standing Room Only signs. Yet the line continued to lengthen. The fire department was forced to clear the aisles inside the theater. The police department was forced to make a path on E Street to permit traffic to pass, and they were forced also to keep disappointed fans from tearing the theater front apart.

Arabian Nights ended at 10:10. A cartoon entitled Runaway Mouse ended at 10:19. The house lights went up.

The curtain came down!

Bela was outside getting out of the limousine.

Even his two lovely companions, Miss Fuller and Mrs. Stetson, had to step aside as people on the ticket line rushed to Bela for his autograph.

I could tell by the glow on Bela's face that he understood, even before a fireman explained, there would be no more people allowed inside the theater. The crowd grew larger and larger. Traffic became even more congested, and the problems of logistics increased. Teen- agers screamed as their elders wanted tickets. The problem became more imperative. A rerun movie and a gross of cartoons hadn't attracted people from parties on New Year's Eve. It was the great Lugosi who had come out of hiding after all those years.

On the inside, the fire department diligently fought to keep the aisles open-there were already too many people in the theater. Two minutes of eleven.

As all things must, the moment arrived. The lights came on. A green-tinted spotlight framed itself against the curtain. The great man walked on stage in full dress suit with the Dracula cape flowing behind him. He looked to his audience.

Then he spoke. 

"My dear friends." The tears of joy were beginning to fill the sensitive eyes that had frightened millions. "I greet you here tonight on a new, great, New Year. May the coming year bring the joy and success deserved. I wish, with all my heart, that I might meet each of you on the mezzanine in a few minutes where I might personally shake your hand and say God bless you."

The great man retraced his steps. Tinted green lights died quickly and were replaced by yellow footlights.

An almost deafening silence prevailed. A silence that became unbearably uncomfortable to me.

Mr. Stetson and I were standing at the back of the theater. We were listening to the silence. There was no sound of breathing. Not a cough or sigh. I felt Mr. Stetson's eyes turning toward me. I couldn't look at him.

He had designed the idea. But I had accepted it and I had written the three-minute speech. But Bela had designed his own speech-less than a minute. Bela had spoken from his heart and mind and decided how he wanted to reach to the public.

For a long, long, long moment, dimmed yellow lights played against a dark velvet curtain. Then tear-filled crowds began to applaud. The applause became a clamor. Mr. Stetson's face was beaming. His idea had not only paid off at the box office, but it had won the hearts of the audience. He was beaming. So was I.

After his speech, Bela went to the mezzanine, where he and Miss Fuller gave autographed photographs to the hundreds of fans who mobbed them. Several minutes after Bela's exit and the fantastic applause, the newspaper man, no longer tipsy, found me in the lobby. "This is the first New Year's Eve I've ever spent in the theater. My wife demanded it. I resented it." Then he smiled broadly. "It's been a rewarding experience."

The man and his misses left before I could express our thanks. Only the letter from Mr. Stetson can successfully close this meaningful episode in Bela Lugosi's life, although there were a great many left.

"When the manager of a motion picture theater fills all his seats, he feels just wonderful. And I certainly do just feel that way tonight. Tonight every seat was filled. And we had nearly two- hundred people waiting.

Our capacity is 1,250 seats. Our ticket sales at eleven PM, for tonight's show, totaled 1,417. What a great satisfaction this must be to Mr. Bela Lugosi. And how our audience loved him. And what a grand trouper he is. The smiles on their faces when they realized they were really, truly, standing in front of the great Dracula just made your heart warm.

"Please convey to Mr. Lugosi my deep, personal appreciation for all that he so generously did to contribute to promoting the personal appearance at our theater.

"Our theater now has newly established records for both attendance and gross business. Tonight was the highest of both since my brother and I took over the theater's operation.

"Mr. Bela Lugosi's personal appearance at the West Coast Theater has truly given our theater a wonderful evening." -Albert Stetson

Oh, how could Bela ever hate Hollywood.

This episode gave Bela the courage to take on another act so late in his life. In his seventies, he appeared in nightclubs, including the Silver Slipper in Las Vegas. He was willing to tackle a very new role since he was neither a song-and-dance man or a teller of funny stories. When the Herdan-Sherrell Agency informed me that the publicity director of the Silver Slipper, Eddie Fox, thought Lugosi would be a great draw (his films were coming fast and furious on television), I immediately called the grand old man and told him. "What in hell could I do in a nightclub?"

"Pick up a good check," I said, then I added. "Let me figure out the routine." And I worked with that very funny man of the Silver Slipper Hank Henry to do just that. We designed a nightclub routine, a comedy, for a very serious actor.

This was February of 1954, so very close to the end of Bela's life. His contracted four-week engagement lasted seven weeks. The review said it all:

"By the way, Bela Lugosi has assuredly found himself a new career.... This old horror man is such a gentle, lovable guy. the entire Slipper cast to a man can't do enough for him. The Bela Lugosi Review is a show you can see again and again for new experiences every time."