Lugosi lives on for posterity not so much as an actor but as the personification of his greatest character. When he performed as Dracula, Lugosi spoke for his own personal legacy as much as for his character when he pronounced the immortal line, “I am Dracula.” – Biography.com

The very essence of vampiric dread
Had fled the revolutions of his home
And far worse things awaiting man than death.

Upon the stage, he stole his viewers’ breath
Translating Dracula to flesh and bone,
The very essence of vampiric dread.

But Universal wanted Chaney’s breadth,
His thousand faces tinged with frightening tones,
And far worse things awaiting man than death.

Lon’s timely ending, rumor has it, kept
Lugosi flush, and soon the world would know
The very essence of vampiric dread.

Now all regard him as the Count who dreamt
About the broken battlements of home
And far worse things awaiting man than death . . .

. . . And only that, a bled-out lifetime spent
Entombed beneath his one defining role:
The very essence of vampiric dread
And far worse things awaiting man than death.