Charles Laughton nominated for Academy Award for Best Actor
Charles Laughton (1 July 1899 – 15 December 1962) was a British actor. He was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926. In 1927, he was cast in a play with his future wife Elsa Lanchester, with whom he lived and worked until his death.
He played a wide range of classical and modern roles, making an impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic. His film career took him to Broadway and then Hollywood, but he also collaborated with Alexander Korda on notable British films of the era, including The Private Life of Henry VIII, for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character. He portrayed everything from monsters and misfits to kings. Among Laughton's biggest film hits were The Barretts of Wimpole Street, Mutiny on the Bounty, Ruggles of Red Gap, Jamaica Inn, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Big Clock, and Witness for the Prosecution. Daniel Day-Lewis cited Laughton as one of his inspirations, saying: "He was probably the greatest film actor who came from that period of time. He had something quite remarkable. His generosity as an actor; he fed himself into that work. As an actor, you cannot take your eyes off him."In his later career, he took up stage directing, notably in The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, and George Bernard Shaw's Don Juan in Hell, in which he also starred. He directed one film, the thriller The Night of the Hunter, which after an initially disappointing reception is acclaimed today as a film classic.1943–1962
Laughton played a cowardly schoolmaster in occupied France in This Land is Mine (1943), by Jean Renoir, in which he engaged himself most actively; in fact, while Renoir was still working on an early script, Laughton would talk about Alphonse Daudet's story "The Last Lesson", which suggested to Renoir a relevant scene for the film. Laughton played a henpecked husband who eventually murders his wife in The Suspect (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, who would become a good friend. He played sympathetically an impoverished composer-pianist in Tales of Manhattan (1942) and starred in The Canterville Ghost, based on the Oscar Wilde story in 1944.
Laughton appeared in two comedies with Deanna Durbin, It Started with Eve (1941) and Because of Him (1946). He portrayed a bloodthirsty pirate in Captain Kidd (1945) and a malevolent judge in Alfred Hitchcock's The Paradine Case (1947). Laughton played a megalomaniac press tycoon in The Big Clock (1948). He had supporting roles as a Nazi in pre-war Paris in Arch of Triumph (1948), as a bishop in The Girl from Manhattan (1948), as a seedy go-between in The Bribe (1949), and as a kindly widower in The Blue Veil (1951). He played a Bible-reading pastor in the multi-story A Miracle Can Happen (1947), but his piece wound up being cut and replaced with another featuring Dorothy Lamour, and in this form the film was retitled as On Our Merry Way. However, an original print of A Miracle Can Happen was sent abroad for dubbing before the Laughton sequence was deleted, and in this form it was shown in Spain as Una Encuesta Llamada Milagro.
Laughton made his first colour film in Paris as Inspector Maigret in The Man on the Eiffel Tower (1949) and, wrote the Monthly Film Bulletin, "appeared to overact" alongside Boris Karloff as a mad French nobleman in a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Door in 1951. He played a tramp in O. Henry's Full House (1952). He became the pirate Captain Kidd again, this time for comic effect, in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952). Laughton made a guest appearance on the Colgate Comedy Hour (featuring Abbott and Costello), in which he delivered the Gettysburg Address. In 1953 he played Herod Antipas in Salome, and he reprised his role as Henry VIII in Young Bess, a 1953 drama about Henry's children.
He returned to Britain to star in Hobson's Choice (1954), directed by David Lean. Laughton received Academy Award and Golden Globe nominations for his role in Witness for the Prosecution (1957). He played a British admiral in Under Ten Flags (1960) and worked with Laurence Olivier in Spartacus (1960). His final film was Advise & Consent (1962), for which he received favourable comments for his performance as a Southern US Senator (for which accent he studied recordings of Mississippi Senator John C. Stennis).1933: Won Best Actor in a Leading Role, The Private Life of Henry VIII
1935: Nominated Best Actor in a Leading Role, Mutiny on the Bounty
1957: Nominated Best Actor in a Leading Role, Witness for the ProsecutionFor his contributions to the motion picture industry, Laughton has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard.
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