Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton (1899-1962), English-born American actor, one of the most popular and versatile character actors of his time. He was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, and educated at Stonyhurst College and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Laughton made his London stage debut in 1926 in The Government Inspector, by Russian writer Nikolay Gogol. New York City theater audiences first saw him in 1931 in Payment Deferred. Laughton's success as a motion-picture actor was almost immediate. In 1933 he won an Academy Award for the title role in the English film The Private Life of Henry VIII. Success in Hollywood quickly followed, and over a period of almost 30 years he appeared in such outstanding films as The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935; as Captain Bligh), Les Misérables (1935; as Inspector Javert), Rembrandt (1936; title role), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939; title role), The Canterville Ghost (1944), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), Spartacus (1960), and Advise and Consent (1962).

One of Laughton's finest achievements arose from his only assignment as a director, the strange and chilling suspense thriller Night of the Hunter (1955). Disturbing and visually haunting, the film is now recognized as a masterpiece of American cinema, but it was not a popular success and Laughton never directed again.

His other work on the theatrical stage, to which he turned more frequently in the last decade of his life, included performances in Galileo (1947), The Cherry Orchard (1950), Don Juan in Hell (1951; staged reading of a segment from Man and Superman, by Irish dramatist George Bernard Shaw), Major Barbara (1956), and King Lear (1959). Laughton married English-born actress Elsa Lanchester in 1929. He became a United States citizen in 1950.