Does Sean Bean Really Die More Than Other Actors?

[Jim]

Lugosi IS Dracula.

Lugosi may be Dracula, but Dracula is Christopher Lee.

I understand where you are coming from... but no one touches Lugosi.

[Atekimogus]

It certainly is NOT a "just that ignorant" kind of thing. Lugosi is just one of those people that I take as common knowledge. (given a level of technology, social and economical environment) You are on this board, actively. You would seem to have an interest in genre, at least sci-fi. Vienna is not out of touch (Miami Wise! Number one new show!). It is also rather close to Dracula-land and Lugosi IS Dracula.

Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff... they, well, they simply ARE

I can see Vincent Price being a USA thing...

That sounds almost like an accusation. How dare he not knowing this person?

Well..it's the internet...so geography isn't really a factor, I was just pointing out that you grow up in different parts of the country you will have different...let's say..educational focal points. And Lugosi isn't one of them. At least not here. (Much depends also no the teacher and his/her personal interests though, so maybe I've just been unlucky)

Now I am sure there are some cinematic buffs even in my friends circle who would probably know of him.....or maybe not...point is imho he is not a part of "common knowledge" but someone well known if you are interested in that kind of thing. (vampires...silent movies....well that IS rather specialized imho)

That being said...yes, I like fantasy and sci-fi....no, I never was interested in anything to do with vampires. I watched a few in my life...and some were not terrible..but I am relatively blasé about them. The only books I read about vampires were the Terry Pratchett Discworld novels which might feature vampires on occasion. I am not really interested in silent movies and I wasn't told about him in school. Hence..... . I mean there are hundreds of writers, philosophers and actors worth knowing. If I miss one here and there....I can life with it. You can't know them all....

Ironically he seems to originate from austria-hungary...which just goes to show that a prophet has no honor in his own country .

[Atekimogus]

Indeed, Atek, you seem to be misconstruing our surprise for belittlement or offense. Nobody (at least not I) thinks less of you for not knowing those actors... yet we can still be surprised at the fact. Lugosi, at least, would be more famous the closer one got to Hungary (which, if my geography is correct, Austria is more so than any part of the U.S.) I didn't learn Homer in school, nor Aristophanes, Euripides, Howard, Gibson, Jerzy Kozinski, Hermann Hesse (EDIT: scratch that, I did in fact read Steppenwolf in high school,) Bishop Berkeley, Sartre, Kirkegaard, etc., etc. I came upon them like any other normal human - I chose to read and to learn.

Good points. I really can't speak for Hungary...maybe he is worshipped there. That's the thing with middle-europe...you travel for half an hour (with a bicycle) and you are in a completely different cultural circle.

I can only state that during my education, my personal interests and my social background...I haven't come across him yet. I might have seen a picture of him as Dracula....but I wouldn't have been able to put a name to it. And nobody - as of yet - has pointed him out to me as someone so important I MUST know about him.

But who is to say what is important or not....I am sure some people would absolutely detest me if they'd know that I can't name a single Pokemon.....

[Mikey]

Well, I can only name a Pokemon or two because I have a six-year-old son, but I have to beg to differ about the identity of Lugosi being common knowledge... at least, round here. Then again, I was gobsmacked the other day when an employee of mine - a woman ten years my senior, mind you - didn't know who Louis Prima was.

*EDIT* OK, before you ask... Louis Prima was the entertainer/singer/composer/trumpeter active from the '30's through the '60's who is best known for his song "Just a Gigolo" and for writing a little tune for swing bandleader Benny Goodman entitled "Sing Sing Sing." You may also know from voicing the eponyomous King Louis in Disney's The Jungle Book.

[Atekimogus]

Well, I can only name a Pokemon or two because I have a six-year-old son, but I have to beg to differ about the identity of Lugosi being common knowledge... at least, round here. Then again, I was gobsmacked the other day when an employee of mine - a woman ten years my senior, mind you - didn't know who Louis Prima was.

I would argue that you cannot assume ANY entertainers to be common knowledge anymore. Sure..you have to life under a rock to not know some of the more famous contemporary ones. But considering the sheer amount of them, how the offer on entertainment exploded in the last couple decades and how absolutely famous and yet surprisingly shortlived some are.....is it that suprising that a woman doesn't know about Louis Prima?

I imagine if you were born in the 50-60 things were easier...everyone watched the same tv shows, heard the same radio etc. etc. . But today.....you can be a total movie and tv-show buff and STILL have not enough time to watch some really good tv-series. (Still haven't had any time for house of cards and multiple others despite this day and age enabling us to binge-watch).

Point is...there are only so many pokemons (eg actors, famous people) one can be expected to memorize and with the sheer amount of entertainment offered today....expecting someone to know someone you might think is important.....seems a bit condescending imho.

[Mikey]

is it that suprising that a woman doesn't know about Louis Prima?

Yes, when you consider that the woman in question is a decade my senior. Would you consider it surprising that someone in their teens in the early 1970's didn't know who Led Zeppelin was? Of course you would.

As to the rest... yes there are far more media options that vie for our attention than ever before. A buddy of mine was astonished to find that I didn't know who Stephen Amell is - because I don't watch Arrow. However, Lugosi was the type model for his genre (even though he did cross genres.) What you're talking about is not knowing who some lounge singer in the 60's was who was popular in the Eastern U.S.; what we're talking about is never having heard of Frank Sinatra. If you never heard of Ol' Blue Eyes, would that make you a bad person? Maybe a little. No, in seriousness of course not. Would that surprise me, just like not knowing of Lugosi? Yes, and that doesn't make me a bad person either.