When Bela Lugosi came in to do Dracula, where did you meet him for the first time?
He came to the theater, he and his wife Lillian, and I met him and we sat down and talked. There seemed to be a strain there, and his wife was more talkative than he, evidently trying to be very helpful and to “un-strain” him, because he was tense. Before I go into that, let me say this: My initial feeling about meeting Lugosi was that I was going to get even with him, because when I first saw the film Dracula, he scared me so badly that for many years I had to sleep with the light on! I kept hearing him say “I am Drac-u-la,” and his walking toward me awakened all those dark feelings. I explained this to him, I told him he had scared the hell out of me [in Dracula], and he said, “I did?” I said, “Yes, you did! It was a very frightening performance. And now I wish to make sure that, when we do it in this theater, that you have the same effect on people coming to this theater to see the show. Let’s make it happen.” He said, “We will, we will….” Telling him how much Dracula scared you–
