Charles Laughton

During WWI, despite Officer Training (in Stonyhurst College's OTC), Laughton chose to join the Army as a private in 1917, while still in his teens. He served with the Huntingdonshire Cyclist Regiment, and later with 7th Bn. Northamptonshire Regiment in the Western Front. Shortly before the armistice he became a casualty due to Mustard gas. Raised Catholic, he reportedly became an agnostic after his wartime experiences.

Charles Laughton was born in Scarborough, Yorkshire, England, to Eliza (Conlon) and Robert Laughton, hotel keepers of Irish and English descent, respectively. He was educated at Stonyhurst (a highly esteemed Jesuit college in England) and at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (received gold medal). His first appearance on stage was in 1926. Laughton formed own film company, Mayflower Pictures Corp.

In the 1928 play "Alibi", he became the first actor to play Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot.

After making Island of Lost Souls (1932), Laughton humorously claimed that he could not go to a zoo for the rest of his life. He based the appearance of his character, Dr. Moreau, on his dentist. His character had to use a whip in the film to tame his "creations", but Laughton already knew how to use one, having learned from a London street performer for an earlier stage role.

Had appeared with his wife Elsa Lanchester in seven films: 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).

Laughton was originally cast as Micawber in David Copperfield (1935), but resigned after two days of shooting. It was said at the time that "he looked as though he were about to molest the child" (played by Freddie Bartholomew).

, with Erich Pommer, in 1937.

Was the first choice to play Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938) which he turned down. (Leslie Howard was cast instead.

He was shooting a Hollywood version of the H.G. Wells novel "The History of Mr. Polly", playing the title role, when war broke out in 1939 and production was abandoned.

Was an acquaintance of Rev. Felton H. Griffin, a pioneering Alaska minister who founded the Alaska Baptist Convention in the 1940s. Griffin was an avid hunter and fisherman, and on occasion, he flew Laughton to his cabin at Coal Lake, Alaska for weekend retreats.

In the opening scene of It Started with Eve (1941), an assistant newspaper editor comments that if Jonathan Reynolds Sr. had lived two centuries earlier, he would have made a great pirate - "Captain Kidd himself". Three years later, Laughton, who played Jonathan Reynolds Sr., played the title role in Captain Kidd (1945) and again in Abbott and Costello Meet Captain Kidd (1952).

Was the stand-in for Ed Sullivan for Elvis Presley's first appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show (1948) in 1956. His wife Elsa Lanchester later had a small role in Elvis' movie Easy Come, Easy Go (1967).

He was twice the Mystery Guest on the popular television quiz show What's My Line (1951).

Had appeared on the cover of the March 31, 1952 issue of Time magazine, which was reporting on his tour of the stage production of the "Don Juan in Hell" episode from George Bernard Shaw's 1903 play "Man and Superman". The famous episode, which is part of the third act of the four-act drama, has often been played as its own show. In Laughton's production, he played the character of The Devil. According to the Time cover story, entitled "The Happy Ham", the touring show had already raked in a gross profit in excess of $1 million ($1.00 equaling approximately $8.00 in 2008 money, when factored for inflation) by the time he was due to make his third appearance in the show in New York City, at the time the article appeared. The article also reported that during a hiatus in the tour, Laughton launched a separate, six-week-long solo tour in which he gave readings from "Aesop's Fables", the Bible and Charles Dickens. The solo tour grossed $164,000, or which his share was $90,000. The article quoted Laughton as saying, "Contrary to what I'd been told in the entertainment industry, people everywhere have a common shy hunger for literature.".

Robert Mitchum once stated that Laughton was the best director he had ever worked for, ironic in that Laughton never directed another movie after The Night of the Hunter (1955) with Mitchum.

He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

For the film Advise & Consent (1962), Laughton based his character of Sen. Seab Cooley on real-life Mississippi Sen. John C. Stennis, and went so far as to have Stennis read the character's lines into a tape recorder so he could get Stennis' accent and rhythms the way he wanted them.

Was director-writer Billy Wilder's first choice to play the character of Moustache in Irma la Douce (1963). Laughton, who had been directed to a Best Actor Oscar nomination by Wilder in Witness for the Prosecution (1957) in 1958, agreed to play the role, but died before principal photography commenced.

To date, as of 2019, he is the only actor to receive an Academy Award for playing King Henry VIII of England.