Charles Laughton
Charles Laughton (
1 July,
1899 â€"
15 December,
1962) was a
British-born
American stage and film actor.
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Charles Laughton circa 1929 photographed by Dorothy Wilding |
Laughton was born in
Scarborough,
Yorkshire. His mother was a devout
Catholic and he attended the famed
Jesuit school,
Stonyhurst College, in
Lancashire, England.[
1] He served during
World War I [
2] (in which he was
gassed).
At first he went into the family business (hotels), while participating in amateur theatricals in Scarborough. Finally allowed by his family to become a drama student at RADA in 1925, he would make his first professional stage appearance in
1926. Despite not having the looks for a romantic lead, he impressed audiences with his talent and played many classical roles before making his film debut in 1932. His best-remembered film role of that year was as
Nero in
Cecil B. DeMille's "The Sign of the Cross", although in this year he turned out a number of memorable performances like Dr. Moreau in "Island of Lost Souls", and the little clerk in the segment of "If I had a Million" directed by Ernst Lubitsch.
His association with the director
Alexander Korda began with
The Private Life of Henry VIII (loosely based on the life of King
Henry VIII of England), for which Laughton won an
Academy Award. However, he continued to act in the theatre, and his American production of
Galileo by (and with)
Bertolt Brecht is legendary.
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Charles Laughton as captain William Bligh |
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Charles Laughton as Emperor Claudius |
Later films included
The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934),
Les Miserables (1935),
Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) (as
Captain Bligh, his most famous screen role, starring with
Clark Gable as
Fletcher Christian),
Ruggles of Red Gap (1935),
Rembrandt (1936) and
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)In 1937 he was to have starred in an ill-fated film version of the classic novel,
I, Claudius, by
Robert Graves, which was abandoned only part-way into filming due to the injuries suffered by co-star
Merle Oberon in a car crash.After
I, Claudius, he and the legendary German film producer Eric Pommer teamed up founding the company "Mayflower Pictures" in the UK, which produced three films starring Laughton:
Vessel of Wrath, based on a story by Somerset Maugham,
St. Martin's Lane, a story about London street entertainers, and
Jamaica Inn, based in a novel by
Daphne du Maurier, and the last film directed by
Alfred Hitchcock in Britain. The films produced were not successful enough, and the company was saved from bankruptcy when
RKO Pictures offered Laughton the role of Quasimodo in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Laughton and Pommer had plans to make further films, but the outbreak of
World War II, which implied the loss of many foreign markets, meant the end of the company.
He also received an
Academy Award nomination for his role in
Witness for the Prosecution (1957).
His final film was
Advise and Consent (1962), for which he received favorable comments for his performance as a southern U.S. Senator (for which accent he studied recordings of the late Mississippi Senator
John Stennis), but Laughton was dying from
bone cancer.
Charles Laughton had one job as a director, and the result was the legendary
The Night of the Hunter (1955), starring
Robert Mitchum,
Shelley Winters and
Lillian Gish. This movie is often cited among today's critics as one of the best movies of the 1950s; unfortunately it was a critical and box-office flop when it was originally released. Laughton never had another chance to direct his own movies.
He had a long and resilient marriage to actress
Elsa Lanchester, although, in her autobiography, Lanchester claimed that Laughton was
homosexual. According to her own account, she was shocked to learn about this, but eventually decided to remain married to him; however she claims as a result of this, she decided not to have children with him. The decision caused him great grief, as he longed to become a father, as many friends of Laughton, among them
Maureen O'Hara and
Stanley Cortez, have stated.
Elsa Lanchester appeared opposite him in several films, including
Rembrandt (1936). In 1950, the couple became American citizens.
Laughton is interred in the
Forest Lawn, Hollywood Hills Cemetery in
Los Angeles, California.
Charles Laughton. A Difficult Actor by Simon Callow. Biography and analysis of his film and stage work.
Heaven and Hell to Play With: The Filming of the Night of the Hunter by Preston Neal Jones. Book covering the genesis, making and aftermath of the film, with many interviews with people involved in its making, which offer insights and bring down some false myths.
Tell Me a Story (1957) and
The Fabulous country (1962). Two literary anthologies selected by Charles Laughton. They contain pieces which where presented by him in his reading tours across America, with written introductions which give some insight about Laughton's thoughts. This selection presents texts from the Bible, Charles Dickens, Thomas Wolfe, Ray Bradbury and James Thurber to name just a few.
Bertolt Brecht in America (1983) by James K. Lyon. An extensively researched account of the German playwright's sojourn in the USA after fleeing Nazi Germany. The collaboration, preparatory work and 1947 stagings of "Galileo" with Charles Laughton are covered in this thoroughly researched book.
Charles Laughton and I (1938) and
Elsa Lanchester Herself (1983) by Elsa Lanchester. In her very personal memoirs Elsa offers a somewhat unbalanced portrait of her late husband.
