Charles Laughton

From Philosopedia

Charles Laughton (1 July 1899 - 15 December 1962)

Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, to a devout Catholic mother who had him educated in a Catholic convent and also at Stonyhurst College, a Jesuit school in Lancashire.

He served in the English army in World War I, being poison-gassed by the Germans.

Until accepted at the Royal academy of Dramatic Art, he worked in the hotel business in London.

Filmography

1928 The Blue Bottle

1928 Day Dreams

1929 Piccadilly

1930 Wolves (Also called: Wanted Men)

1931 Down River

1932 The Old Dark House

1932 Payment Deferred

1932 The Sign of the Cross

1932 If I Had a Million

1932 The Devil & the Deep

1933 Private Life of Henry VIII (Won 1932-33 Oscar, Best Actor & Best Picture)

1933 Island of Lost Souls

1933 White Woman

1934 The Barretts of Wimpole Street (Also called: Forbidden Alliance)

1935 Ruggles of Red Gap

1935 Les Miserables

- Captain Bligh

1935 Mutiny on the Bounty

1936 Rembrandt

1936 I, Claudius

1938 The Beachcomber (Also called: Vessel of Wrath. U.K. title)

1938 St.Martin's Lane (Also called: Sidewalks of London, U.S. title)

1939 The Hunchback of Notre Dame

- The Hunchback

1939 Jamaica Inn

1940 They Knew What They Wanted

1941 It Started With Eve

1942 Stand by for Action

1942 Tales of Manhattan

1942 The Tuttles of Tahiti

1943 Forever & A Day

1943 This Land is Mine

1943 The Man From Down Under

1944 The Canterville Ghost

1944 The Suspect

1946 Because of Him

1947 The Big Clock

1948 On Our Merry Way (Also called: A Miracle Can Happen)

1948 The Girl From Manhattan

1948 The Paradine Case

1948 Arch of Triumph

1949 The Man on the Eiffel Tower

1949 The Bribe

1951 The Strange Door

1951 The Blue Veil

1952 O.Henry's Full House

1952 Abbott & Costello Meet Captain Kidd

1953 Salome

1953 Young Bess

1954 Hobson's Choice

1955 The Night of the Hunter (Only complete film to direct; did not star in)

1957 Witness for the Prosecution

1960 Spartacus

1960 Under Ten Flags

1962 Advise & Consent (Last film)

1962 The Epic That Never Was (British documentary on the making of "I, Claudius")

Final Days

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.

In the neighborhood where they lived, legend has it that when his wife caught him messing around with a rent boy in the house, she kicked him out along with the sofa they were on.

Elsa Lanchester appeared opposite him in several films, including "Rembrandt" (1936) and "Witness for the Prosecution" (1957) for which both received Academy Award nominations. Laughton for Best Actor, and Lanchester for Best Supporting Actress. Neither won.

In 1950, the couple became American citizens.

Biographer Simon Callow (Charles Laughton: a Difficult Actor 1987) says Laughton's brothers invited a procession of priests to attend the dying man, as he lay drugged and gasping for air. Laughton mused, "I wish they were more intelligent." His wife opposed any attempt to trick him "into endorsing something he had vehemently denounced all his adult life" (p. 284). But during one of her infrequent absences, a priest was rushed in to administer extreme unction. Unable to protest, the lapsed Catholic murmured, "I think I've joined the gang."

Lancaster, who in Maureen O'Hara's biography is described as not a believer in God, was not at all amused by a priest's administering extreme unction to her helpless husband.

Laughton died on 15 December 1962, and his funeral was conducted by a non-denominational chaplain. Over his wife's objection, a Unitarian choir sang "Death, Where Is Thy Sting?".

Laughton is interred in the Forest Lawn, the Hollywood Hills Cemetery, in Los Angeles, California.