Charles Laughton had a most interesting & troubled career in Theatre & Film. Possessed by a silver voice with astounding command, he was responsible for some of the most recklessly flamboyant characterizations the screen has seen. & yet his doubts crippled him. Recognized in the 1930s as the screen's true creator of larger than life characters, his career declined into inconsequential movies. He sometimes mocked the parts he was playing, & found himself with a reputation for being unmanageable.
He was an artist with deep, volatile feelings who only occasionally found work in which he could believe. There is an almost brutal contrast in his films between artful invention & unchallenged emoting. A large, ugly actor, he was sometimes incapable of escaping the beastly man he often played. Laughton was a homosexual, tortured by the need to be secret & truly guilt-ridden because of it. He came to see his own looks as warranted punishment; he was his own hunchback.
Within a year of leaving RADA, he had found his 1st professional acting role on stage in The Government Inspector. With the theatre enjoying a resurgence after the hard war years, Laughton found work easily. In 1926, his 1st year of professional acting, he performed in 5 different plays. While performing in a London, he met Elsa Lanchester. From a bohemian background, Lanchester was lively & strong willed. She fell for the reserved & sensitive Laughton, & despite his suppressed homosexuality the pair began a courtship. The couple worked together in a few silent films before they married in 1929. In 1933, his large figure & pudgy face, along with classically trained acting skills, won him the title role in The Private Life of King Henry VIII. He starred alongside his wife, who played Anne of Cleves, & the role won him much public acclaim. In 1933 he won an Oscar for Best Actor, & The Private Life of Henry VIIIwon Best Picture.
Hollywood was anxious to use him for serious character roles. Laughton went on to play the uncompromising & brutal Javert in Les Miserables, the eccentric Captain William Bligh in Mutiny On The Bounty& the slightly unhinged artist Rembrandt in a biopic of his life. Great roles were now being offered Laughton & in 1939, he was the obvious choice to play the lead role in The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Laughton was hesitant to play the role. Having long detested his own looks, the character of Quasimodo was maybe a bit close to home. He did take the role & despite not winning the expected 2nd Oscar, The Hunchback of Notre Dame became Laughton’s best-known film role.
In 1955, Laughton directed (but did not act in) the great thriller- The Night of the Hunter,starring Robert Mitchum, Shelley Winters & Lillian Gish. The film is often cited among today's critics as one of the best of the 1950s, & has been selected by the United States National Film Registry for preservation in the Library of Congress. At the time of its original release, it was a critical & box-office failure, & Laughton never had another chance to direct. I am very affected by the film’s lyric & expressionistic style. I would put it in the top 10 scariest movies I have ever viewed. I give it an A on the Steve Report Card.
Only 2 years into the marriage, Lanchester learnt of her husband’s homosexuality. She was initially shocked & deeply upset, but over time the couple began to develop a relationship based on friendship. They decided to remain married. They both took lovers, but were constant companions, looking after & supporting each other. Laughton’s relationship with his sexuality was difficult. He had several lovers, but never had a significant male partner. Laughton still loathed his sexuality. Even at the height of his fame, Laughton’s sexuality remained a tight secret. Lanchester managed to keep that secret safe.
Charles Laughton died in December 1962, after a battle with kidney cancer at age 63. His cremated remains of Laughton are interred in a marbled crypt of the Court of Remembrance courtyard, at Forest Lawn Cemetery in L.A.
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