A British comedy from the early 1950s with several titles (“Vampire Over London” “Old Mother Riley Meets The Vampire” and in America “My Son The Vampire”) has an odd piece of folklore attached to it, and I am wondering if anybody here would know the actual story behind it. So according to legend, for lack of a better term, Bela Lugosi had traveled to Great Britain but for some reason he didn’t have the money to purchase a flight or ship back to the States, so he agreed to act in this movie to earn money for the return home. Here’s what I find odd about this legend: Mr. Lugosi was an older adult male and probably pretty well-traveled by that point in his career. How in the world could he have planned a trip to England and NOT purchased a round trip ticket!? What was the original purpose of his visit to England? Supposedly nobody was willing or able to wire him money to come home, and I find this to be a bit hard to understand as well, since I assume he had friends and family that would have been willing to help him out. So, does anybody have the straight dope on this very strange and somewhat sad story?
He was high.
It was the Fifties. You had to be there.
Okay, that was not necessarily a factual answer. Just an assumption because Lugosi was a bit of a junkie. A broke junkie.
Sadly Mr. Lugosi’s life had taken a rather negative turn, although I still have no idea if this legend about not having the fare to get back home is real.