Elsa Lanchester

[blackv8]

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (born October 28, 1902 - December 26, 1986) was an Oscar-nominated English character actress who became a naturalized American citizen in 1950 along with her husband, actor Charles Laughton. She is perhaps best remembered for her role as the title character in Bride of Frankenstein (1935).

Lanchester was born in Lewisham, London, England. Her parents, James Sullivan and Edith Lanchester, were considered Bohemian, and refused to legalize their union in any conventional way to satisfy the era's conservative society.

After the First World War, Elsa started the Children's Theatre and later the Cave of Harmony, a night-club at which modern plays and cabaret turns were performed. According to some, she worked as a nude model during this time. Lanchester eventually met, married and acted with Charles Laughton. They appeared in the Old Vic Season of 1933-34, playing Shakespeare, Chekov and Wilde, and in 1936 she was Peter Pan to Laughton's Captain Hook. They moved back and forth between London and Los Angeles as their film acting careers took off.

In the 1950s Lanchester released three LP albums. Two were entitled "Songs for a Shuttered Parlour" and "Songs for a Smoke-Filled Room" and were vaguely lewd and danced around their true purpose, such as the song about her husband's "clock" not working. Charles Laughton provided the spoken introductions to each number and even joined Elsa in the singing of "She Was Poor But She Was Honest." Elsa's third LP was entitled "Cockney London," a selection of old London Songs for which Laughton wrote the sleeve-notes. (from Wikipedia)

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Bride of Frankenstein is a 1935 horror film, the first sequel to the influential Frankenstein (1931). Bride of Frankenstein was directed by James Whale and stars Boris Karloff as The Monster and Elsa Lanchester in the dual role of his mate and Mary Shelley.

Lanchester, who had accompanied husband Charles Laughton to Hollywood, had met with only moderate success, while Laughton had achieved fame in several films (including Whale's own The Old Dark House) and won an Academy Award for his role in The Private Life of Henry VIII. Lanchester modeled the Bride's hissing on the hissing of swans. (from Wikipedia)

[elton dong]

She also gets a mention in a short but brilliant poem by Manchester's John Cooper Clarke called 'I don't Want to go to Burnley'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6kLhZTP4ywY

[blackv8]

Here's a group caricature by master artist Al Hirschfield depicting the cast of the play Murder by Death. The image of Elsa is not so flattering, coming as it does, late in her life, but still captures some of the manic quality she could bring to her roles.

[blackv8]

Here's a one-off that really accentuates Elsa's classic "chiseled" features.

[blackv8]

Well, our solitary nude shot has disappeared; I'm not sure if the fake vs. real debate was addressed, but Lanchester certainly had a reputation that suggests there may well be nudes of her somewhere. One of the controversies (which she apparently perpetuated herself) was that she only married actor Charles Laughton for appearance and convenience. She claimed he was quite gay, which other actresses of his acquaintance vehemently denied. Lanchester claimed that Laughton's homosexuality was the reason they never had children; another actress demanded that Lanchester's back-alley abortion as a young woman had left her incapable of childbearing. Manuel, Sgt. Schultz and I are all on the same page on that topic: I know nothing. Except, of course, that she was quite an attractive lady.

[zwaik]

Elsa Lanchester + Jerry Lewis + Dean Martin

[george anson]

Frankensteins Bride:

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... in big resolution (2262x2906)

...

[rodak]