Romanians at Hollywood (part 4)

Today we'll talk about other great actors with romanian origins.

Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall (born September 16, 1924) is an American film and stage actress and model. Known for her husky voice and sultry looks, she became a fashion icon in the 1940s and has continued acting to the present day.

Bacall was born Betty Joan Perske in New York City, the only child of Natalie (née Bacal or Weinstein), and William Perske. Her parents were Jewish immigrants, their families having come from France, Poland, Romania and Germany. She was married with Humprey Bogart and Jason RoBards.


Her acting career began in 194 with To Have and Have Not, continuing with other cult movies as Confidential Agent, The Big Sleep, Key Largo, How to Marry a Millionaire, Murder on the Orient Express, The Shootist, Misery, Prêt-à-Porter, Dogville. Bacall was ranked as one of the 25 greatest female stars of all time by the American Film Institute and chosen by Empire magazine as one of the 100 Sexiest Stars in film history (#6).

Fran Drescher
Francine Joy Drescher was born on September 30th, 1957 in Flushing, Queens, New York, in a family of Jewishs with romanian origins.


Fran's first break was in the unforgettable movie, Saturday Night Fever (1977) with John Travolta. She continued to play small roles in movies, until she came up with the idea for The Nanny (1993). She was visiting a friend in England and came up with the plot line. "The Nanny" (1993) became an instant success, and so did Fran. Since then, she has been in films such as The Beautician and the Beast (1997) (which she also produced) and Picking Up the Pieces (2000) co-starring Woody Allen. Fran has since divorced her husband Jacobson. She is a cancer survivor and an inspiration to women everywhere. She was chosen by People magazine as one of the 50 most beautiful people in the world (1996).

Bela Lugosi
Not really a romanian (he was hungarian ethnic), but born in today Romania, at Lugoj, Timiş County, Béla Ferenc Dezsõ Blaskó was shooting to fame when he played Count Dracula in the legendary 1927 Broadway stage adaptation of Bram Stoker's novel. It ran for three years, and was subsequently, and memorably, filmed by Tod Browning in 1931, establishing Lugosi as one of the screen's greatest personifications of pure evil.


Sadly, his reputation rapidly declined, mainly because he was only too happy to accept any part (and script) handed to him, and ended up playing pathetic parodies of his greatest role, in low-grade poverty row shockers. He ended his career working for the legendary Worst Director of All Time, Edward D. Wood Jr. He was buried in his Dracula cape.

Romanians at Hollywood (part 3)

Edward G. Robinson
Edward Goldenberg Robinson, Sr. (December 12, 1893 - January 26, 1973) Born in Bucharest, he emigrated with his family to New York City. An interest in acting led to him winning an American Academy of Dramatic Arts scholarship, after which he changed his name to Edward G. Robinson (the G. signifying his original last name).

He began his acting career in 1913 and made his Broadway debut in 1915. He made his film debut in a minor and uncredited role in 1916; in 1923 he made his named debut as E. G. Robinson in The Bright Shawl. One of many actors who saw his career flourish in the new sound film era rather than falter, he made only three films prior to 1930 but left his stage career that year and made fourteen films in 1930-32. An acclaimed performance as the gangster Rico Bandello in Little Caesar (1931) led to him being typecast as a 'tough guy' for much of his early career in works such as Five Star Final (1931), Smart Money (1931; his only movie with James Cagney), Tiger Shark (1932), Kid Galahad (1937) with Bette Davis and Humphrey Bogart, and A Slight Case of Murder and The Amazing Dr. Clitterhouse (1938). In the 1940s, after a good performance in Dr. Ehrlich's Magic Bullet (1940), he expanded into edgy psychological dramas including Double Indemnity (1944), The Woman in the Window (1945) and Scarlet Street (1945); but he continued to portray gangsters such as Johnny Rocco in John Huston's classic Key Largo (1948), the last of five films he made with Humphrey Bogart. Other notable roles were The Ten Commandments in 1956, A Hole in the Head (1959) opposite Frank Sinatra and The Cincinnati Kid (1965), which showcased Robinson alongside Steve McQueen. His last scene was a euthanasia sequence in the science fiction cult classic Soylent Green (1973).


Robinson was popular in the 1930s and 1940s and was able to avoid many flops during a 50-year career that included 101 films. In 1973 he was awarded an honorary Oscar in recognition that he had "achieved greatness as a player, a patron of the arts, and a dedicated citizen... in sum, a Renaissance man".

Romanians at Hollywood (part 2)

Marcel Iureş (born 1951 in Băileşti, Romania)
Marcel Iureş is one of Romania's most acclaimed stage and screen actors, having starred in more than two dozen features in his native country and twice being named its best actor. After the 1989 Revolution, he left for Hollywood but preferred to return to Bucharest where in 1998 he created ACT Theatre - the only independent stage in Romania at its time. He has enjoyed a prolific stage career, being famous for his acting in Shakespeare plays.


Name is pronounced Mar-tshel Yoo-rresh.

His American film credits include The Peacemaker starring George Clooney, Interview with the Vampire: The Vampire Chronicles (1994) starring Cruise and Brad Pitt, Mission: Impossible (1996) starring Tom Cruise, Hart's War (2002), Amen (2002) directed by Costa-Gavras, Cambridge Spies (2003), The Tulsa Luper Suitcase 2 (2004), Goal! (2005), Youth without Youth (2007).
Among his most noted Romanian films are Vacanţa cea mare (1988) (The Big Holiday), Balanţa (1992) (The Oak), Society's Pillars, The Duel, The Last Messenger, and Romanian.

Romanians at Hollywood (part 1)

Johnny Weissmuller (June 2, 1904 – January 20, 1984)
Born Peter Johann Weissmüller in Freidorf, now a district of Timişoara, Romania; when he arrived in the US he used his brother's name, Johnny, because it was more American.
At age nine, Weissmuller contracted polio. At the suggestion of his doctor, he took up swimming to help battle the disease. As a teen, Weissmuller dropped out of school and worked various jobs including a stint as a lifeguard at a Lake Michigan beach. While working as an elevator operator and bellboy at the Illinois Athletic Club, Weissmuller caught the eye of swim coach William Bachrach. Bachrach trained Weissmuller and in August 1921, Weissmuller won the national championships in the 50-yard and 220-yard distances. Though he was foreign-born, Weissmuller gave his birthplace as Tanneryville, Pennsylvania, and his birth date as that of his younger brother, Peter Weissmuller. This was to ensure his eligibility to compete as part of the United States Olympic team, and was a critical issue in being issued an American passport. On July 9, 1922, Weissmuller broke Duke Kahanamoku's world record on the 100-meters freestyle, swimming it in 58.6 seconds. He won the title in that distance at the 1924 Summer Olympics, beating Kahanamoku on February 24, 1924. He also won the 400-meters freestyle and the 4 x 200 meters relay. As a member of the American water polo team, he also won a bronze medal. Four years later, at the 1928 Summer Olympics in Amsterdam, he won another two Olympic titles.

In all, he won five Olympic gold medals, one bronze medal, won fifty-two U.S. National Championships and set sixty-seven world records. Johnny Weissmuller never lost a race and retired from his amateur swimming career undefeated.


His acting career began when he signed a seven year contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and played the role of Tarzan in Tarzan the Ape Man (1932). The movie was a huge success and Weissmuller became an overnight international sensation. Tarzan author, Edgar Rice Burroughs, was pleased with Weissmuller, although he so hated the studio's depiction of a Tarzan who barely spoke English that he created his own concurrent Tarzan series filmed on location in Central American jungles and starring Herman Brix as a suitably articulate version of the character.
Weissmuller starred in six Tarzan movies for MGM with actress Maureen O'Sullivan as Jane and Cheeta the Chimpanzee. Then, in 1942, Weissmuller went to RKO and starred in six more Tarzan movies with markedly reduced production values. Although not the first Tarzan in movies, (that honor went to Elmo Lincoln), he was the first to be associated with the now traditional ululating, yodeling Tarzan yell. (During an appearance on television's The Mike Douglas Show in the 1970s, Weissmuller explained how the famous yell was created. Recordings of three vocalists were spliced together to get the effect - a soprano, an alto, and a hog caller).
Aside from a first screen appearance as Adonis and the role of Johnny Duval in the 1946 film Swamp Fire, Weissmuller played only three roles in 35 films and 26 series during the heyday of his Hollywood career: Tarzan, Jungle Jim, and himself.

For his contribution to the motion picture industry, Johnny Weissmuller has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6541 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood.