Charles Laughton Charles Laughton ( 1 July 1899 – 15 December 1962 ) was an English stage and film actor and director . Laughton was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art ( RADA ) 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 . ( They had no children . ) He played a wide range of classical and modern parts , making a big impact in Shakespeare at the Old Vic . His film career took him to Hollywood , but he also collaborated with Alexander Korda on some of the most notable British films of the era , including " The Private Life of Henry VIII " . 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 " and " The Big Clock " . 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 the acclaimed thriller " The Night of the Hunter " . Early life and career . Laughton was born in Scarborough , North Riding of Yorkshire , the son of Robert and Eliza ( née Conlon ) Laughton , Yorkshire hotel keepers . His mother was a devout Roman Catholic of Irish descent , and he attended Stonyhurst College , the pre - eminent English Jesuit school . He fought in World War I ( during which he was gassed ) , serving first with the 2 / 1st Battalion of the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Battalion , and later with the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment . He started work in the family hotel business , while participating in amateur theatricals in Scarborough . Finally allowed by his family to become a drama student at RADA in 1925 , Laughton made his first professional stage appearance on 28 April 1926 at the Barnes Theatre , as Osip in the comedy " The Government Inspector " , in which he also appeared at London ' s Gaiety Theatre in May . Despite not having the looks for a romantic lead , he impressed audiences with his talent and played classical roles in two plays by Chekhov , " The Cherry Orchard " and " The Three Sisters " . Laughton played the lead role of Harry Hegan in the world premiere of Sean O ' Casey ' s " The Silver Tassie " in 1928 in London . He played the title roles in Arnold Bennett ' s " Mr Prohack " ( Elsa Lanchester was also in the cast ) and in " Mr Pickwick " . He played Tony Perelli in Edgar Wallace ' s " On the Spot " and William Marble in " Payment Deferred " . He took the last role across the Atlantic and made his United States debut on 24 September 1931 , at the Lyceum Theatre . He returned to London for the 1933 – 34 Old Vic season and was engaged in four Shakespeare roles ( as Macbeth and Henry VIII , Angelo in " Measure for Measure " and Prospero in " The Tempest " ) and also as Lopakhin in " The Cherry Orchard " , Canon Chasuble in " The Importance of Being Earnest " , and Tattle in " Love for Love " . In 1936 , he went to Paris and on 9 May appeared at the Comédie - Française as Sganarelle in the second act of Molière ' s " Le Médecin malgré lui " , the first English actor to appear at that theatre , where he acted the part in French and received an ovation . Laughton commenced his film career in Britain while still acting on the London stage . He also took small roles in three short silent comedies starring his wife Elsa Lanchester , " Daydreams " , " Blue Bottles " and " The Tonic " ( all 1928 ) which had been specially written for her by H . G . Wells and were directed by Ivor Montagu . He made a brief appearance as a disgruntled diner in another silent film " Piccadilly " with Anna May Wong in 1929 . He appeared with Lanchester again in a " film revue " , featuring assorted British variety acts , called " Comets " ( 1930 ) in which they sang a duet , " The Ballad of Frankie and Johnnie " . He made two other early British talkies : " Wolves " with Dorothy Gish ( 1930 ) from a play set in a whaling camp in the frozen north , and " Down River " ( 1931 ) , in which he played a drug smuggler . His New York stage debut in 1931 immediately led to film offers and Laughton ' s first Hollywood film was " The Old Dark House " ( 1932 ) with Boris Karloff , in which he played a bluff Yorkshire businessman marooned during a storm with other travellers in a creepy remote Welsh manor . He then played a demented submarine commander in " Devil and the Deep " with Tallulah Bankhead , Gary Cooper and Cary Grant , and followed this with his best - remembered film role of that year as Nero in Cecil B . DeMille ' s " The Sign of the Cross " . Laughton turned out other memorable performances during that first Hollywood trip , repeating his stage role as a murderer in " Payment Deferred " , playing H . G . Wells ' mad vivisectionist Dr . Moreau in " Island of Lost Souls " , and the meek raspberry - blowing clerk in the brief segment of " If I Had a Million " , directed by Ernst Lubitsch . He appeared in six Hollywood films in 1932 . His association with director Alexander Korda began in 1933 with the hugely successful " The Private Life of Henry VIII " ( loosely based on the life of King Henry VIII ) , for which Laughton won an Academy Award . He also continued to act occasionally on stage , including a U . S . production of " The Life of Galileo " by ( and with ) Bertolt Brecht . Film career . 1933 – 1943 . Laughton soon gave up the stage in preference for a film career and returned to Hollywood where his next film was " White Woman " ( 1933 ) in which he co - starred with Carole Lombard as a Cockney river trader in the Malayan jungle . Then came " The Barretts of Wimpole Street " ( 1934 ) as Norma Shearer ' s character ' s malevolent father ( although Laughton was only three years older than Shearer ) ; " Les Misérables " ( 1935 ) as Inspector Javert ; one of his most famous screen roles in " Mutiny on the Bounty " ( 1935 ) as Captain William Bligh , co - starring with Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian ; and " Ruggles of Red Gap " ( 1935 ) as the very English butler transported to early 1900s America . He signed to play Micawber in " David Copperfield " ( 1934 ) , but after a few days shooting asked to be released from the part and was replaced by W . C . Fields . Back in the UK , and again with Korda , he played the title role in " Rembrandt " ( 1936 ) . In 1937 , also for Korda , he starred in an ill - fated film version of the classic novel , " I , Claudius " , by Robert Graves , which was abandoned during filming owing to the injuries suffered by co - star Merle Oberon in a car crash . After " I , Claudius " , he and the ex - patriate German film producer Erich Pommer founded the production company Mayflower Pictures in the UK , which produced three films starring Laughton : " Vessel of Wrath " ( US Title " The Beachcomber " ) ( 1938 ) , based on a story by W . Somerset Maugham , in which his wife , Elsa Lanchester , co - starred ; " St . Martin ' s Lane " ( US Title " Sidewalks of London " ) , about London street entertainers , which featured Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison ; and " Jamaica Inn " , with Maureen O ' Hara and Robert Newton , about Cornish smugglers , based on Daphne du Maurier ' s novel , and the last film Alfred Hitchcock directed in Britain before moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s . The films produced were not commercially successful enough , and the company was saved from bankruptcy only when RKO Pictures offered Laughton the title role ( Quasimodo ) in " The Hunchback of Notre Dame " ( 1939 ) , with " Jamaica Inn " co - star O ' Hara . Laughton and Pommer had plans to make further films , but the outbreak of World War II , which implied the loss of many foreign markets , meant the end of the company . Laughton ' s early success in " The Private Life of Henry VIII " established him as one of the leading interpreters of the costume and historical drama parts for which he is best remembered ( Nero , Henry VIII , Mr . Barrett , Inspector Javert , Captain Bligh , Rembrandt , Quasimodo and others ) ; he was also type - cast for arrogant , unscrupulous characters . He largely moved away from historical parts when he played an Italian vineyard owner in California in " They Knew What They Wanted " ( 1940 ) ; a South Seas patriarch in " The Tuttles of Tahiti " ( 1942 ) ; and an American admiral during World War II in " Stand by for Action " ( 1942 ) . He played a Victorian butler in " Forever and a Day " ( 1943 ) and an Australian bar - owner in " The Man from Down Under " ( 1943 ) . Simon Callow ' s 1987 biography quotes a number of contemporary reviews of Laughton ' s performances in these films . James Agate , reviewing " Forever and a Day " , wrote : " Is there no - one at RKO to tell Charles Laughton when he is being plain bad ? " On the other hand , Bosley Crowther of the " New York Times " declared that " Forever and a Day " boasted " superb performances " . C . A . Lejeune , wrote Callow , was " shocked " by the poor quality of Laughton ' s recent work : " One of the most painful screen phenomena of latter years " , she wrote in " The Observer " , " has been the decline and fall of Charles Laughton . " On the other hand , David Shipman , in his book " The Great Movie Stars : The Golden Years " , said " Laughton was a total actor . His range was wide " . 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 an updated version of Oscar Wilde ' s " The Canterville Ghost " 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 " The Paradine Case " ( 1948 ) . 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 a pirate again , buffoon style this time , 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 repeated his role as Henry VIII in " Young Bess " ( 1953 ) . 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 U . S . Senator ( for which accent he studied recordings of Mississippi Senator John C . Stennis ) . Laughton worked on the film , which was directed by Otto Preminger , while he was dying from metastatic renal cell carcinoma ( kidney cancer ) . " The Night of the Hunter " . In 1955 , Laughton directed " The Night of the Hunter " , starring Robert Mitchum , Shelley Winters and Lillian Gish . The film has been cited among critics as one of the best of the 1950s , and has been selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress . At the time of its original release , however , it was a critical and box - office failure , and Laughton never directed again . The documentary " Charles Laughton Directs The Night of the Hunter " by Robert Gitt ( 2002 ) features preserved rushes and outtakes with Laughton ' s audible off - camera direction . Theatre . Laughton made his London stage debut in Gogol ' s " The Government Inspector " ( 1926 ) . He appeared in many West End plays in the following few years and his earliest successes on the stage were as Hercule Poirot in " Alibi " ( 1928 ) ; he was the first actor to portray the Belgian detective in this stage adaptation of " The Murder of Roger Ackroyd " , and as William Marble in " Payment Deferred " , making his Lyceum Theatre ( New York ) debut in 1931 . In 1926 , he played the role of the criminal Ficsur in the original London production of Ferenc Molnár ' s " Liliom " ( The play became a musical in 1945 by Rodgers and Hammerstein as " Carousel " , where Ficsur became Jigger Craigin , but Laughton never appeared in the musical version ) . While Laughton is most remembered for his film career , he continued to work in the theatre , as when , after the success of " The Private Life of Henry VIII " he appeared at the Old Vic Theatre in 1933 as Macbeth , Lopakin in " The Cherry Orchard " , Prospero in " The Tempest " and Angelo in " Measure for Measure " . In the U . S . , Laughton worked with Bertolt Brecht on a new English version of Brecht ' s play " Galileo " . Laughton played the title role at the play ' s premiere in Los Angeles on 30 July 1947 and later that year in New York . This staging was directed by Joseph Losey . The processes by which Laughton painstakingly , over many weeks , created his Galileo — and incidentally , edited and translated the play along with Brecht — are detailed in an essay by Brecht , " Building Up A Part : Laughton ' s Galileo . " Laughton had one of his most notable successes in the theatre by directing and playing the Devil in " Don Juan in Hell " beginning in 1950 . The piece is actually the third act sequence from George Bernard Shaw ' s play " Man and Superman " , frequently cut from productions to reduce its playing time , consisting of a philosophical debate between Don Juan and the Devil with contributions from Doña Ana and the statue of Ana ' s father . Laughton conceived the piece as a staged reading and cast Charles Boyer , Cedric Hardwicke and Agnes Moorehead ( billed as " The First Drama Quartette " ) in the other roles . Boyer won a special Tony Award for his performance . He directed several plays on Broadway . His most notable box - office success as a director came in 1954 , with " The Caine Mutiny Court - Martial " , a full - length stage dramatisation by Herman Wouk of the court - martial scene in Wouk ' s novel " The Caine Mutiny " . The play , starring Henry Fonda as defence attorney Barney Greenwald , opened the same year as the film starring Humphrey Bogart as Captain Queeg and José Ferrer as Greenwald based on the original novel , but did not affect that film ' s box - office performance . Laughton also directed a staged reading in 1953 of Stephen Vincent Benét ' s " John Brown ' s Body " , a full - length poem about the American Civil War and its aftermath . The production starred Tyrone Power , Raymond Massey ( re - creating his film characterisations of Abraham Lincoln and John Brown ) , and Judith Anderson . Laughton did not appear himself in either production , but " John Brown ' s Body " was recorded complete by Columbia Masterworks . Laughton returned to the London stage in May 1958 to direct and star in Jane Arden ' s " The Party " at the New Theatre which also had Elsa Lanchester and Albert Finney in the cast . He made his final appearances on stage as Nick Bottom in " A Midsummer Night ' s Dream " , and as King Lear at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in 1959 , although failing health resulted in both performances being disappointing , according to some British critics . His performance as King Lear was lambasted by critics , including Kenneth Tynan , who wrote that Laughton ' s Nick Bottom " . . . behaves in a manner that has nothing to do with acting , although it perfectly hits off the demeanor of a rapscallion uncle dressed up to entertain the children at a Christmas party " . Although he did not appear in any later plays , Laughton toured the U . S . with staged readings , including a successful appearance on the Stanford University campus in 1960 . Recordings . Laughton ' s voice first appeared on 78 - rpm records with the release of five British Regal Zonophone 10 - inch discs entitled " Voice of the Stars " issued annually from 1934 to 1938 . These featured short soundtrack snippets from the year ' s top films . He is heard on all five records in , respectively , " The Private Life of Henry VIII " , " The Barretts of Wimpole Street " , " Mutiny on the Bounty " , " I , Claudius " ( curiously , since this film was unfinished and thus never released ) , and " Vessel of Wrath " . In 1937 he recorded Lincoln ' s Gettysburg Address on a 10 - inch Columbia 78 , having made a strong impression with it in " Ruggles of Red Gap " . He made several other spoken - word recordings , one of his most famous being his one - man album of Charles Dickens ' s " Mr . Pickwick ' s Christmas " , a twenty - minute version of the Christmas chapter from Dickens ' s " The Pickwick Papers " . It was first released by American Decca in 1944 as a four - record 78 - rpm set , but was afterward transferred to LP . It frequently appeared on LP with a companion piece , Decca ' s 1941 adaptation of Dickens ' s " A Christmas Carol " , starring Ronald Colman as Scrooge . Both stories were released together on a Deutsche Grammophon CD for Christmas 2005 . In 1943 , Laughton recorded a reading of the Nativity story from St . Luke ' s Gospel , and this was released in 1995 on CD on a Nimbus Records collection entitled " Prima Voce : The Spirit of Christmas Past " . A Brunswick / American Decca LP entitled " Readings from the Bible " featured Laughton reading Garden of Eden , The Fiery Furnace , Noah ' s Ark , and David and Goliath . It was released in 1958 . Laughton had previously included several Bible readings when he played the title role in the film " Rembrandt " . Laughton also narrated the story on the soundtrack album of the film that he directed , " Night of the Hunter " , accompanied by the film ' s score . This album has also been released on CD . Also , and derived from the film they made together , a complete radio show ( 18 June 1945 ) of " The Canterville Ghost " was broadcast which featured Laughton and Margaret O ' Brien . It has been issued on a Pelican LP . A two - LP Capitol Records album was released in 1962 , the year of Laughton ' s death , entitled " The Story Teller : A Session with Charles Laughton " . Taken from Laughton ' s one - man stage shows , it culls together dramatic readings from several sources . Three of the excerpts are broadcast annually on a Minnesota Public Radio Thanksgiving program entitled " Giving Thanks " . " The Story Teller " won a Grammy in 1962 for Best Spoken Word Recording . However , although the album has yet to be released on compact disc , it can now be heard in its entirety online . Television . Laughton was the fill - in host on 9 September 1956 , when Elvis Presley made his first of three appearances on CBS ' s " The Ed Sullivan Show " , which garnered 72 million viewers ( Ed Sullivan was recuperating from a car accident ) . That same year , Laughton hosted the first of two programmes devoted to classical music entitled " Festival of Music " , and telecast on the NBC television anthology series " Producers ' Showcase " . One of his last performances was on " Checkmate " , in which he played a missionary recently returned from China . He threw himself into the role , travelling to China for several months in order to better understand his character . Private life . In 1927 , Laughton began a relationship with Elsa Lanchester , at the time a cast mate in a stage play . The two were married in 1929 , became American citizens in 1950 , and remained together until Laughton ' s death . Over the years , they appeared together in several films , including " Rembrandt " ( 1936 ) , " Tales of Manhattan " ( 1942 ) and " The Big Clock " ( 1948 ) . Lanchester portrayed Anne of Cleves , Henry VIII ' s fourth wife , opposite Laughton in " The Private Life of Henry VIII " . They both received Academy Award nominations for their performances in " Witness for the Prosecution " ( 1957 ) — Laughton for Best Actor , and Lanchester for Best Supporting Actress — but neither won . Laughton and Lanchester had no children , a fact which Lanchester later attributed to Laughton ' s being homosexual . Although Laughton ' s bisexuality has been corroborated by several of his contemporaries and is generally accepted by Hollywood historians , actress Maureen O ' Hara , a friend and co - star of Laughton , has disputed the contention that his sexuality was the reason Laughton and Lancaster did not have children . O ' Hara claimed that Laughton had told her that he wished he had had children but that it had not been possible because of a botched abortion which Lanchester had early in her career while performing burlesque . In her own autobiography , Lanchester acknowledged having had two abortions in her youth — one of the pregnancies purportedly by Laughton — although she didn ' t mention whether this had indeed rendered her infertile . According to her biographer , Charles Higham , the reason she didn ' t have children was that she didn ' t want any . Death . Charles Laughton died 15 December 1962 , after a battle with renal cell carcinoma ( kidney cancer ) , aged 63 . He was cremated and the remains interred in a crypt in the Court of Remembrance courtyard at Forest Lawn - Hollywood Hills Cemetery in Los Angeles , California . Awards and nominations . Laughton won the New York Film Critics ' Circle Awards for " Mutiny on the Bounty " and " Ruggles of Red Gap " in 1935 .