Bela was a gypsy fortune teller who traveled with his family throughout Europe in the early 1940s. The son of an elderly woman named Maleva, he suffered the curse of Lycanthropy and turned into a wolf when the moon was full.

In 1941, Bela and his gypsy troupe were in Llanwelly, Wales when he met a customer named Jenny Williams. Bela read her fortune, but was horrified when he saw the image of the pentagram in her hand. Bela warned her to leave, but soon transformed into a large wolf. He hunted Jenny through the moors and attacked her. One of Jenny's acquaintances, an aristocrat named Larry Talbot, came to her aid and beat Bela down with a silver-tipped walking stick, ultimately killing him. During the struggle however, Bela bit Talbot, transmitting the curse of the werewolf to him.