Beni Gabor is a supporting character and secondary antagonist in 1999's The Mummy. A greedy, cowardly former member of the French Foreign Legion, he competes with Rick O'Connell in finding the lost treasures of the ancient necropolis Hamunaptra before allying himself with the mummy Imhotep. He is portrayed by Kevin J. O'Connor and is the last character to die in the film.
History[]
Beni Gabor lived the life of a thief and con artist in his home country of Hungary, but fled as the law began to close in on him. He joined the French Foreign Legion in order to escape persecution and in doing so met Rick O'Connell, whom he claimed as a friend during their enlistment with the real intent of having a bodyguard so as not to end up in trouble. Trouble came, however, when a marauding band of Tuaregs came roving to the ruins of Hamunaptra on horseback, eliminating a number of legionnaires. O'Connell rushed to the ruins to hide from the bullets, but Beni rushed there too, forcing shut a great stone door so that O'Connell could not enter. O'Connell, forced to fight, stood alone and eventually made it back to civilisation, while Beni escaped the desert by taking the camels of a few dead legionnaires and making it back alone through the desert.
Some time following that escapade, Beni would hire himself out as a guide to a group of American treasure hunters and offered to lead them to Hamunaptra, the fabled City of the Dead. During the excursion, Beni once again ran afoul of O'Connell who was on the same riverboat. The boat would be attacked by black-robed bandits (which were actually Medjai warriors), forcing the passengers to flee overboard. While Beni and his party got off the boat with all of the horses, he wound up on the wrong side of the Nile, and so Rick and Beni's groups began their race to Hamunaptra.
Both parties would arrive at Hamunaptra with Rick and his group narrowly winning the race (to which Rick was awarded $500 after making a bet with Daniels) and both parties began exploring different areas of the ruins. During their search, Beni's party discovered an ancient chest containing the Book of the Dead, a supposedly cursed tome that held the secret to resurrecting the dead. The superstitious Beni was horrified by his group's discovery and wanted no part of it, keeping his distance from the group.
In the night, Evelyn Carnahan took the Book of the Dead from a sleeping Dr. Chamberlain and read aloud a passage from its dusty pages. In doing so, she inadvertantly brought about the revival of the accursed mummy Imhotep. Upon the mummy's awakening, a great swarm of locusts swept through the camp, forcing the adventurers to take cover inside the ruins. The ruins were no safer, of course, as Imhotep and hordes of flesh-eating scarab beetles roamed the dark tunnels. Beni panicked as he watched the diggers from his group fall prey to the insects and ran away into the darkness. As he fled, he ran into the decayed form of Imhotep. The terrified Beni then brandished numerous religious icons to ward off the creature, uttering prayers for each in different languages. When he uttered a Hebrew prayer brandishing the Star of David, Imhotep recognised the language and decided that Beni could be of use to him. He offered Beni great rewards in return for his service and the greedy Beni eagerly obliged.
Beni and Imhotep then followed Rick and the other adventurers back to Cairo, intent on hunting down the individuals responsible for opening the chest containing the Book of the Dead and Imhotep's canopic jars. Three days later, they found the adventurers at Fort Brydon and Imhotep killed Burns, Chamberlain, Henderson and Daniels one by one, consuming their life force and assimilating their organs in order to regenerate his own rotten body. In his rampage, Imhotep brought down the Ten Plagues upon Cairo and enslaved many of the townspeople in order to hunt down Evelyn Carnahan, whose beauty had drawn the mummy's attention. Imhotep was determined to take Evelyn and use her as a sacrifice in a ritual to resurrect his lost lover Anck-Su-Namun.
Imhotep later returned to Hamunaptra, bringing Beni and Evelyn in tow, but Rick O'Connell, Ardeth Bay and Evelyn's brother Jonathan were not far behind. As Imhotep conducted the ritual of resurrection, he raised several mummified guards and priests to protect him. As for Beni, he went scurrying off into the ruins in order to gather up as much treasure as he could.
Death[]
When Rick succeeded in slaying Imhotep, Hamunaptra began to collapse into the desert sands. As the ceilings lowered, Rick and the others made their getaway. Beni attempted to flee also, but was slowed down by the amount of treasure he was carrying. He found Rick and tried to reach out to him as a wall descended between them. Sealed inside, Beni had no means of ever getting out and would have either suffocated or starved to death over time. He would not have to wait that long, however, as swarm of scarabs flooded the chamber and surrounded. Beni briefly held the scarabs at bay with the flame of his torch, but the flame soon went out. Beni died screaming in darkness as the scarabs ate him alive.