Elsa Lanchester

From Philosopedia

Elsa Lanchester (28 October 1902 - 26 December 1986)

Unorthodox actor Lanchester was born In London to parents many considered to be bohemians. In fact, they had come from the Western Czech lands, refusing to legalize their union.

Young Elsa studied to be a dancer under Isadora Duncan, then turned to acting as a teenager, debuting in 1924 in films. Routinely described as a "dedicated nonconformist," in 1929 Elsa married Charles Laughton, with whom she had an unorthodox marriage, writing a book in which she alleged the two had never had children because he was homosexual. Actor Maureen O'Hara, however, disputed this, saying Laughton had told her the reason was that she had had a botched abortion early in her career while performing burlesque. Laughton might well have told O'Hara this, and she might well have been one of the few who knew what everyone else in Hollywood knew.

Her splashy American debut was as the Bride of Frankenstein (1935). She played Anne of Cleves in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). Her many other films include: Lassie Come Home (1946), The Spiral Staircase (1947), The Big Clock (1949), Come to the Stable (1949), Les Miserables (1955), The Glass Slipper (1958), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Bell, Book & Candle, Mary Poppins (1964), Pajama Party (1965), That Darn Cat (1968), Murder by Death (1976, playing Miss Marbles), and Die Laughing (1980).

She wrote Charles and Me (1939) and her autobiography, Elsa Lanchester Herself (1983). Ultra-religious actress O'Hara, in her own autobiography, mentions twice in that book that she disapproved of Elsa Lanchester because Elsa did not believe in God.

She died of pneumonia at the Motion Picture Country Hospital in Woodland Hills, California. At her request there were no funeral or memorial services, and her ashes were scattered in the Pacific.