Hungary is a landlocked country of roughly ten million people, and yet its contribution to Hollywood, particularly in the golden studio era, is so disproportionate to its size it borders on the extraordinary. Directors, actors and performers poured out of Budapest and into the studio system with remarkable regularity. Here are ten of the most significant film icons with Hungarian roots.
10. Rachel Weisz (born 1970, London)
The most contemporary figure on this list, Weisz is the daughter of George Weisz, a Hungarian Jewish inventor who settled in England. Born in London, she won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for The Constant Gardener (2005) and has built one of the most respected acting careers of her generation.
9. Eva Bartok (1927-1998, Budapest)
Born Éva Szőke in Budapest, Bartok gained international attention opposite Burt Lancaster in The Crimson Pirate (1952) and appeared alongside Frank Sinatra in Never So Few (1959). She retired from acting in the early 1960s and spent her final decades in Amsterdam, a quietly underappreciated figure from postwar European cinema.
8. Vilma Bánky (1901-1991, Budapest)
Discovered in Budapest by Samuel Goldwyn in 1925 and marketed as the Hungarian Rhapsody, Bánky became Rudolph Valentino’s preferred leading lady, starring opposite him in The Eagle (1925) and The Son of the Sheik (1926). When sound arrived, her accent ended her career almost overnight. She married actor Rod La Rocque and retired from public life, living quietly in Los Angeles until her death at ninety.
7. Paul Lukas (1891-1971, Budapest)
A long-serving character actor whose career spanned continents, Lukas pulled off one of the great Oscar upsets by winning Best Actor for Watch on the Rhine (1943), beating Humphrey Bogart in the process. He later appeared in Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954) and continued working in film and television into his seventies.
6. Eva Gabor (1919-1995, Budapest)
The youngest of the three Gabor sisters and arguably the most professionally disciplined, Eva built a genuine television career alongside her film work. Her six-season run as Lisa Douglas in Green Acres (1965-1971), a Hungarian socialite transplanted to a rural American farm, required comic timing that she delivered consistently. She was also a successful businesswoman, running the Eva Gabor International wig company for decades.
5. Peter Lorre (1904-1964, Rózsahegy, Austria-Hungary)
Born László Löwenstein to Hungarian Jewish parents, Lorre fled Germany when the Nazis came to power after Fritz Lang cast him in the landmark M (1931), one of cinema’s great performances. He made his way to Hollywood via Hitchcock’s London and became a fixture at Warner Bros., appearing memorably as Ugarte in Casablanca (1942) alongside fellow Hungarian Michael Curtiz.
4. Zsa Zsa Gabor (1917-2016, Budapest)
Born Sári Gábor, Zsa Zsa is the hardest figure on this list to evaluate, because her fame ultimately swallowed her film career whole. She appeared in John Huston’s Moulin Rouge (1952) and several other solid productions, but she is remembered more for nine marriages and a cultural presence that many historians consider the template for the modern celebrity. She died in 2016 at ninety-nine.
3. Tony Curtis (1925-2010, New York, Hungarian parents)
Born Bernard Schwartz to Hungarian Jewish immigrants from Mátészalka, Curtis spoke only Hungarian until the age of five or six. He grew up in poverty in the Bronx and built one of the most versatile careers in Hollywood, earning an Oscar nomination for The Defiant Ones (1958) and immortality via Some Like It Hot (1959). He insisted on co-starring billing for Sidney Poitier at a time when Hollywood was largely segregated, and later donated significant sums to the restoration of Jewish sites in Budapest. (TCM)
2. Bela Lugosi (1882-1956, Lugos, Hungary)
Born Béla Blaskó and named for his birthplace, Lugosi served in the Austro-Hungarian army in World War One, organised actors’ unions, and fled Hungary for political reasons. He played Count Dracula on Broadway for three years before Tod Browning filmed it in 1931, establishing the defining template for the cinematic vampire. Blacklisted by major studios, he ended his career making poverty-row productions for Ed Wood. He was buried in a Dracula cape. Martin Landau won an Oscar for playing him in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994).
1. Michael Curtiz (1886-1962, Budapest)
Born Manó Kertész Kaminer, Curtiz directed his first film in Hungary in 1912, worked across Europe, and arrived at Warner Bros. in 1926, where he spent twenty-eight years directing over one hundred films. He directed James Cagney and Joan Crawford to their respective Oscars, introduced Doris Day to cinema audiences, and made the definitive Errol Flynn adventure films. His masterpiece, Casablanca (1942), won the Academy Award for Best Picture and earned Curtiz his only Oscar for Best Director. According to Britannica, no studio director of his era matched his sustained range and quality across three decades. He spoke five languages and, by all accounts, all of them badly. His father, brother and sisters died in Auschwitz.
The films and performances of many of these icons can still be found and explored today. Video platforms such as YouTube have made older cinema considerably more accessible than it once was, and channels dedicated to classic and forgotten films play a real role in keeping this history visible. Stream TV is one such YouTube channel, with a particular focus on uncovering films from precisely the era these ten figures defined. For anyone wanting to move from reading about these performances to actually watching them, it is a worthwhile place to start.
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