ACTOR
Charles Laughton
32 archived facts 4 topics 1 source Last reviewed Oct 2026
All facts (32)
- #001
Charles Laughton discovered actress Maureen O'Hara when she was 18 and immediately signed her to a contract.
- #002
Charles Laughton was the first actor to play Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus in the cancelled film version of Robert Graves's I, Claudius (1937). Production was suspended after his leading lady, Merle Oberon, who was to play his wife Messalina, was in a car accident in which she struck the windshield and suffered permanent facial cuts. The decision was made to halt production, and the costs were reimbursed to producer Alexander Korda's London Films by Lloyds of London.
- #003
Laughton's widow, Elsa Lanchester, stated in a memoir written after his death that they never had children because he was homosexual. According to Maureen O'Hara, however, Laughton once told her that not having children was his greatest regret and that it stemmed from Elsa's inability to have children following a failed abortion she had while performing burlesque early in her career. In her autobiography, Lanchester admitted that she became pregnant by Laughton and had an abortion.
- #004
A highly respected drama teacher whose students included Albert Finney and William Phipps, Laughton played Billie Holiday records for his students as an example of vocal intonation techniques.
- #005
He was director-writer Billy Wilder's first choice to play the character Bıyık in Irma la Douce (1963). Laughton, whom Wilder had guided to a Best Actor Oscar nomination for Witness for the Prosecution (1957), agreed to take the role in 1958 but died before principal photography began.
- #006
During World War I, despite Officer Training (in Stonyhurst College's OTC), Laughton chose to join the army as a private in 1917 while still a teenager. He served in the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Regiment and later in the 7th Bn. of the Northamptonshire Regiment on the Western Front. Shortly before the armistice he was a casualty of mustard gas. Raised Catholic, he was said to have become agnostic after his wartime experiences.
- #007
He was Ed Sullivan's stand-in for Elvis Presley's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) in 1956. His wife, Elsa Lanchester, later played a small role in Elvis's film Easy Come, Easy Go (1967).
- #008
He was the first actor to play Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot, in the 1928 play "Alibi".
- #009
He was close friends with Burgess Meredith.
- #010
Laughton was diagnosed with gallbladder cancer after being hospitalized in January 1962 when his vertebrae collapsed following a fall in the bathroom. Over his final eleven months his weight dropped to just ninety kilos. After his death he was interred in the Memorial Court of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles, California.
- #011
For Advise & Consent (1962), Laughton based the character Senator Seab Cooley on real-life Mississippi Senator John C. Stennis, going so far as to have Stennis read the character's lines into a recording device so that he could capture Stennis's accent and rhythms as he wanted.
- #012
After making Island of Lost Souls (1932), Laughton joked that he could never go to a zoo again for the rest of his life. He based the appearance of his character, Dr. Moreau, on a dentist. His character had to use a whip to tame his "creations" in the film, but Laughton already knew how to use a whip, having learned it from a London street performer for an earlier stage role.
- #013
He appeared in seven films with his wife, Elsa Lanchester: The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), Rembrandt (1936), The Beachcomber (1938), Tales of Manhattan (1942), Forever and a Day (1943), The Big Clock (1948) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957).
- #014
He was the Mystery Guest twice on the popular television quiz show What's My Line (1951).
- #015
The commercial failure of Night of the Hunter (1955) left him deeply disappointed.
- #016
He had always wanted to play Lear in a stage production of "King Lear" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, but he died before he could stage the play. He did, however, portray Lear on stage.
- #017
He named Robert Mitchum as one of the best actors in the world.
- #018
He was the first choice to play Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938) and turned it down. (Leslie Howard was cast instead.)
- #019
He was the second English actor to win an Oscar, after George Arliss, but the first to win for an English film (The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933)).
- #020
He became a United States citizen in 1950.
- #021
Charles Laughton appeared in six Oscar Best Picture nominees: The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), The Barretts of Wimpole Street (1934), Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Les Misérables (1935), Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957). Mutiny on the Bounty was the only one of these to win. Ruggles of Red Gap (1935), Les Misérables (1935) and Mutiny on the Bounty (1935) were all released in 1935. He was nominated for Best Actor for The Private Life of Henry VIII (which he won), Mutiny on the Bounty and Witness for the Prosecution, which represent his three Oscar acting nominations.
- #022
On 8 February 1960, Charles Laughton was awarded a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California.
- #023
Charles Laughton and his wife were active in liberal politics.
- #024
As of 2019, Charles Laughton remains the only actor to have won an Oscar for playing King Henry VIII of England.
- #025
Charles Laughton won an Oscar for playing King Henry VIII of England. Years later, Robert Shaw was nominated for playing the same role, making them the first pair of actors to receive Oscar nominations for playing the same role. A few years after that, Richard Burton was also nominated for the role of Henry VIII, making it the only role for which three actors have been nominated. The first winning pair was Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro, who played Don Vito Corleone in the first two Godfather films. Other pairs included: José Ferrer (winner) and Gérard Depardieu (nominee) as Cyrano de Bergerac, Jason Robards and Leonardo DiCaprio (both nominated) as Howard Hughes, John Wayne (winner) and Jeff Bridges (nominee) as Rooster Cogburn, and Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella (both nominated) as former President Richard Nixon.
- #026
Charles Laughton had two younger brothers: Tom Laughton (1903–1984) and Francis ("Frank") Laughton (1908–1964).
- #027
Although he was not the first British actor to win an Oscar (George Arliss beat him to it), Charles Laughton was the first actor to win an Oscar for a British-made film (British or otherwise), namely The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933).
- #028
Charles Laughton played two Roman characters that share common elements with roles also played by Derek Jacobi: (1) Laughton played the Roman Emperor Claudius in I, Claudius (1937), while Jacobi played him in I, Claudius (1976), and (2) Laughton played Gracchus in Spartacus (1960), while Jacobi played a character of the same name in Gladiator (2000).
- #029
Charles Laughton shares two roles with Anthony Hopkins: (1) Laughton played Lieutenant William Bligh in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935), while Hopkins played him in The Bounty (1984), and (2) Laughton played Quasimodo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), while Hopkins played him in The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1982).
- #030
In the opening scene of It Started with Eve (1941), a newspaper assistant editor says that Jonathan Reynolds Sr. would have been a great pirate if he had lived two centuries earlier: "Captain Kidd himself". Three years later, Charles Laughton, who played Jonathan Reynolds Sr., took the lead role in Captain Kidd (1945) and again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952).
- #031
Charles Laughton was Karen Dotrice's godfather.
- #032
Charles Laughton played King Henry VIII in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933) and Young Bess (1953).
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