page_title: Elsa Lanchester
section_title: Film career
hierarchical_section_title: Elsa Lanchester / Film career
caption_attribution_description: English: Photo of guest stars Elsa Lanchester and Edward Everett Horton from the television series Burke's Law. The item has no copyright markings on it as can be seen in the links above. United States Copyright Office page 2 "Visually Perceptible Copies The notice for visually perceptible copies should contain all three elements described below. They should appear together or in close proximity on the copies. 1 The symbol © (letter C in a circle); the word “Copyright”; or the abbreviation “Copr.” 2 The year of first publication. If the work is a derivative work or a compilation incorporating previously published material, the year date of first publication of the derivative work or compilation is sufficient. Examples of derivative works are translations or dramatizations; an example of a compilation is an anthology. The year may be omitted when a pictorial, graphic, or sculptural work, with accompanying textual matter, if any, is reproduced in or on greeting cards, postcards, stationery, jewelry, dolls, toys, or useful articles. 3 The name of the copyright owner, an abbreviation by which the name can be recognized, or a generally known alternative designation of owner.1 Example © 2007 Jane Doe."
context_page_description: Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was an English actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.
  Lanchester studied dance as a child and after the First World War began performing in theatre and cabaret, where she established her career over the following decade. She met the actor Charles Laughton in 1927, and they were married two years later. She began playing small roles in British films, including the role of Anne of Cleves with Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII. His success in American films resulted in the couple moving to Hollywood, where Lanchester played small film roles.
  Her role as the title character in Bride of Frankenstein brought her recognition. She played supporting roles through the 1940s and 1950s. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Come to the Stable and Witness for the Prosecution, the last of twelve films in which she appeared with Laughton. Following Laughton's death in 1962, Lanchester resumed her career with appearances in such Disney films as Mary Poppins, That Darn Cat! and Blackbeard's Ghost. The horror film Willard was highly successful, and one of her last roles was in Murder by Death.
context_section_description: Lanchester made her film debut in The Scarlet Woman (1925) and in 1928 appeared in three silent shorts written for her by H. G. Wells and directed by Ivor Montagu: Blue Bottles, Daydreams and The Tonic. Laughton made brief appearances in all of them. They also appeared together in a 1930 film revue entitled Comets, featuring British stage, musical and variety acts, in which they sang in duet "The Ballad of Frankie and Johnnie". Lanchester appeared in several other early British talkies, including Potiphar's Wife (1931), a film starring Laurence Olivier.
  She appeared opposite Laughton again as Anne of Cleves in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), with Laughton in the title role. Laughton was by now making films in Hollywood, so Lanchester joined him there, making minor appearances in David Copperfield (1935) and Naughty Marietta (1935). These and her appearances in British films helped her gain the title role in Bride of Frankenstein (1935). She and Laughton returned to Britain to appear together again in Rembrandt (1936) and later in Vessel of Wrath (US: The Beachcomber. 1938).
  They both returned to Hollywood, where he made The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939)  although Lanchester didn't appear in another film until Ladies in Retirement (1941). She and Laughton played husband and wife (their characters were named Charles and Elsa Smith) in Tales of Manhattan (1942) and they both appeared again in the all-star, mostly British cast of Forever and a Day (1943). She received top billing in Passport to Destiny (1944) for the only time in her Hollywood career.
  Lanchester played supporting roles in The Spiral Staircase and The Razor's Edge (both 1946). She appeared as the housekeeper in The Bishop's Wife (1947) with David Niven playing the bishop, Loretta Young his wife, and Cary Grant an angel. Lanchester played a comical role as an artist in the thriller, The Big Clock (1948), in which Laughton starred as a megalomaniacal press tycoon. She had a part as a painter specialising in nativity scenes in Come to the Stable (1949), for which she was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress (1949).
  During the late 1940s and 1950s she appeared in small but highly varied supporting roles in a number of films while simultaneously appearing on stage at the Turnabout Theatre in Hollywood. Here she performed her solo vaudeville act in conjunction with a marionette show, singing somewhat off-colour songs which she later recorded for a couple of LPs.
  Onscreen, she appeared alongside Danny Kaye in The Inspector General (1949), played a blackmailing landlady in Mystery Street (1950), and was Shelley Winters's travelling companion in Frenchie (1950). More supporting roles followed in the early 1950s, including a 2-minute cameo as the Bearded Lady in 3 Ring Circus (1954), about to be shaved by Jerry Lewis.
  She had another substantial and memorable part when she appeared again with her husband in Witness for the Prosecution (1957) a screen version of Agatha Christie's 1953 play for which both received Academy Award nominations – she for the second time as Best Supporting Actress, and Laughton, also for the second time, for Best Actor. Neither won. However, she did win the Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress for the film.
  Lanchester played a witch in Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and appeared in such films as Mary Poppins (1964), That Darn Cat! (1965) and Blackbeard's Ghost (1968). She appeared on 9 April 1959, on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. She performed in two episodes of NBC's The Wonderful World of Disney. Additionally, she had memorable guest roles in an episode of I Love Lucy in 1956 and in episodes of NBC's The Eleventh Hour (1964) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1965).
  Lanchester continued to make occasional film appearances, singing a duet with Elvis Presley in Easy Come, Easy Go (1967) and playing the mother in the original version of Willard (1971), alongside Bruce Davison and Ernest Borgnine, which scored well at the box office. She was Jessica Marbles, a sleuth based on Agatha Christie's Ja
caption: Lanchester and Edward Everett Horton as guest stars on Burke's Law, 1964
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