Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton was a British and American actor born on 1 July 1899 in Scarborough, North Riding of Yorkshire, the son of Robert Laughton and Eliza Laughton, Yorkshire hotel keepers. He served in World War I with the 2/1st Battalion of the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Battalion and later the 7th Battalion of the Northamptonshire Regiment, during which he was gassed. Before pursuing a professional career, he participated in amateur theatrical productions in Scarborough while working in the family hotel. His family permitted him to enroll at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art in London in 1925, where actor Claude Rains was among his teachers.

Laughton made his first professional stage appearance on 28 April 1926 at the Barnes Theatre, playing Osip in The Government Inspector, a production that also transferred to London's Gaiety Theatre in May of that year. He went on to appear in classical roles in two Chekhov plays, The Cherry Orchard and The Three Sisters, and played the lead role of Harry Hegan in the world premiere of Seán O'Casey's The Silver Tassie in London in 1928. That same period saw him take title roles in Arnold Bennett's Mr Prohack and as Samuel Pickwick in Mr. Pickwick at the Theatre Royal. He also played Tony Perelli in Edgar Wallace's On the Spot and William Marble in Payment Deferred, the latter role he would carry to the United States.

Laughton made his Broadway debut on 24 September 1931 at the Lyceum Theatre in Payment Deferred, marking his first appearance in the United States. His Broadway career spanned from 1931 to 1956 and included appearances in The Fatal Alibi, Galileo, Major Barbara, and Don Juan in Hell, in which he both starred and served as a stage director. He also directed The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial during his later career as a stage director.

He returned to London for the 1933–34 Old Vic season, taking on four Shakespeare roles — Macbeth, Henry VIII, Angelo in Measure for Measure, and Prospero in The Tempest — as well as Lopakhin in The Cherry Orchard, Canon Chasuble in The Importance of Being Earnest, and Tattle in Love for Love. In 1936, he appeared at the Comédie-Française in Paris as Sganarelle in the second act of Molière's Le Médecin malgré lui, performing the role in French and becoming the first English actor to appear at that theatre.

Laughton began his film career in Britain while still active on the London stage, appearing in several silent and early sound films before his New York stage debut in 1931 led directly to Hollywood offers. His first Hollywood film was The Old Dark House (1932) with Boris Karloff, and he appeared in five additional Hollywood films that same year, including Cecil B. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross, in which he played Nero, and Island of Lost Souls, in which he portrayed H. G. Wells's Dr. Moreau. He also reprised his stage role as a murderer in the film version of Payment Deferred.

His collaboration with director Alexander Korda beginning in 1933 produced the hugely successful The Private Life of Henry VIII, for which Laughton won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his portrayal of the title character. He received additional Academy Award nominations for his role as Captain William Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and as a barrister in Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Among his other notable films were The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Les Misérables (1935), Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Rembrandt (1936), Jamaica Inn (1939), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), The Big Clock (1948), Young Bess (1953), Hobson's Choice (1954), and Spartacus (1960). He also directed one film, the thriller The Night of the Hunter (1955). His final screen appearance was in Advise & Consent (1962).

In addition to his Academy Award, Laughton received a Grammy Award over the course of his career, along with nominations for two BAFTAs and a Golden Globe. He earned a motion picture star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1960. He died on 15 December 1962.