His New York stage debut in 1931 immediately led to film offers and Laughton's first Hollywood film, The Old Dark House (1932) with Boris Karloff, in which he played a bluff Yorkshire businessman marooned during a storm with other travelers in a creepy remote Welsh manor. The actor is almost completely unrecognisable, in a role reminiscent of John Hurt as Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's ‘The Elephant Man’ [1980]. Laughton appeared in two comedies with Deanna Durbin, It Started with Eve (1941) and Because of Him (1946). 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". It was the 1939 version starring Charles Laughton as Quasimodo and Maureen O’Hara as Esmeralda. Quasimodo, with the girl, is captured by Phoebus, Captain of the Guards, who frees the girl. 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. [20][21][22][23] Actress Maureen O'Hara, a friend and co-star of Laughton, disputed the contention that his sexuality was the reason Laughton and Lanchester did not have children, claiming Laughton told her he had wanted children but that it had not been possible because of a botched abortion that Lanchester had early in her career of performing burlesque. 'Our Lady of Paris', originally titled Notre-Dame de Paris. My Favorite is The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939). Michael O'Connor March 2008. No offense to Olivier or Brannagh, Pacino or Nicholson... but LAUGHTON IS THE MAN! The actor is almost completely unrecognisable, in a role reminiscent of John Hurt as Joseph Merrick in David Lynch's ‘The Elephant Man’ [1980]. James Agate, reviewing Forever and a Day, wrote: "Is there no-one at RKO to tell Charles Laughton when he is being plain bad?" My … Charles Laughton (1899 - 1962 ) Laughton recieved his training at the Royal Academy of Dramatic arts in London. Call him Jack...Thank you for introducing me to Charles Laughton and to Life with a capital L! 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. [12] Laughton played a henpecked husband who eventually murders his wife in The Suspect (1944), directed by Robert Siodmak, who would become a good friend. [1] 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, The Big Clock, and Witness for the Prosecution. In 1927, Laughton began a relationship with Elsa Lanchester, at the time a castmate in a stage play. He then frames Esmeralda for the crime, and she is tried and sentenced to death. Laughton played a cowardly schoolmaster in occupied France in This Land is Mine (1943), by Jean Renoir, in which he engaged himself most actively;[11] 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. 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. 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. In addition, the movie’s happy ending is in sharp contrast to the novel, in which both Quasimodo and Esmeralda die. 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 the Academy Award for Best Actor. Laughton portrayed an unlikely hero: the kind, misunderstood, and pitiable hunchback Quasimodo, the bell ringer at Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. Charles laughton quasimodo makeup - Unser Testsieger . Directed by William Dieterle. Taken from Laughton's one-man stage shows, it compiles dramatic readings from several sources. Three of the excerpts are broadcast annually on a Minnesota Public Radio Thanksgiving program entitled Giving Thanks. C/U of Laughton applying make-up in front of a large mirror. (The Disney drawing don't count!) But Laughton's reply obviously struck him deeply: ''Sweltering under his heavy rubber makeup Charles muttered in a tormented voice, ''I am sorry, I am so sorry, but I … [24] In her autobiography, Lanchester acknowledged two abortions in her youth – one of the pregnancies purportedly by Laughton – but did not mention infertility. CHARLES LAUGHTON. 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. 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