10 Fascinating Facts You Never Knew About Fantasia
5. Bela Lugosi Was Chernabog’s Reference Model... Sort Of
For those who don’t know the classic movie monsters, Bela Lugosi is the original Dracula. Moving to the United States in 1920, he performed the role of Dracula in a Broadway production of Bram Stoker’s novel before moving to Hollywood films in 1931. His most famous role unfortunately led to him being typecast and his career quickly declined as a result.
During the production of Fantasia, when Lugosi’s career was still prospering, Walt Disney hired him to be the reference model for the demon Chernabog for the famous Night on Bald Mountain segment that closed the film. He essentially performed the entire sequence, which the rest of the team would animate over.
Unfortunately, Lead Animator Bill Tytla was not happy with the results of Lugosi’s work. Lugosi’s facial expressions were kept for the film but as for the animations for the body movements, a member of the animation team was told to take his shirt off and perform the part for the crew to animate over instead.
A pity that a random animator could do a better job with his body movements than the man who made Dracula a household name.