Hollywood celebrity
Benalmádena honours the man who stole the Oscar from BogartA council resolution gives the green light to the protection of the grave of Hollywood actor Paul Lukas, who swapped Sunset Boulevard for the Costa del Sol
Añádenos en Google Paul Lukas with Jennifer Jones, Oscar winners in 1944. (. SUR)Paco Griñán
05/06/2026 a las 10:42h.The seduction of the Costa del Sol has endless chapters. One of them features the actor Paul Lukas, a Hollywood star who swapped Palm Springs for Torremolinos in the 50s and 60s. Hungarian-born, he came into the world with the cinema itself (1895) and headed to California to make the most of his leading-man looks.
He triumphed and even stole the Oscar from Humphrey Bogart himself in Casablanca in 1944. That night, what rang out was: 'Play it again, Paul'. Nobody knows quite how he ended up in Malaga, but it is clear he made himself very much at home. He even drummed up new recruits for the Costa and signed up the Russian Misha Auer, another European actor who swapped Sunset Boulevard for Calle San Miguel.
One fine day, Lukas came across the Benalmádena International Cemetery and changed his will. "I want to be buried here," he said - or something like that. And so it was in 1971. His grave, forgotten since then and at risk of disappearing, has just been reclaimed by the local town hall itself, which has begun the process of protecting the burial site. And that of his Oscar-winning neighbour too (Misha Auer).
Lukas' Oscar-winning film Watch on the Rhine was not released in Spain: it told the story of an anti-fascist who fought against Franco
"One day he accompanied another Hungarian friend, the businessman Jorge Yacobi, to see the cemetery and also bought a grave, leaving in writing his wish to be buried in Benalmádena. Here he found a large colony of compatriots and was happy," says journalist, playwright and writer Carlos Zamarriego, who four years ago discovered the actor's blackened tombstone, researched its unknown history and began a campaign for its rehabilitation.
The Benalmádena International Film Festival (FICCAB) was quick to echo the story and paid tribute to him three years ago, while the festival's own director, Jaime Noguera, last year promoted a petition on Change.org to preserve the tomb, which was in danger of disappearing with the transfer of the remains to the common ossuary. The rescue of Lukas' memory has just culminated with the council resolution approval to place a plaque and initiate the procedure for the protection of the mausoleum, on the initiative of its environment and health department.
Paul Lukas, Kirk Douglas, Peter Lorre and James Mason in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. (SUR)At home in Spain
The curious and even contradictory detail is that the Oscar winner for playing an opponent of the coup faction in the Spanish Civil War should have ended up feeling so at home in Franco's Spain. "The fact that he was comfortable in that Spain is a paradox. In reality he was an antifascist and, after the Second World War, a committed anticommunist," explains Zamarriego, who points out that Paul Lukas had genuine star status and worked on screen with Katharine Hepburn, Errol Flynn, James Mason, Peter O'Toole, Ava Gardner and Glenn Ford, and under the direction of George Cukor, John Huston, Vincente Minnelli and Alfred Hitchcock.
His Hollywood fame was such that producer Michael Todd Jr. was determined to cast him in the filming of Scent of Mystery (1960) in Malaga when he heard that Lukas was living on the Costa del Sol. The film was going to make history - and it did, though for the wrong reasons. It was the first film with smells, but proved to be a resounding flop. And was forgotten. Just like Lukas himself. Until now.