Fans will no doubt be flocking to cinemas this weekend to watch The Bride!, starring Christian Bale and Jessie Buckley. However, back in 1935, the original Bride of Frankenstein was released, and it starred Elsa Lanchester as the titular character.
The iconic horror film helped rocket the actress to stardom, and she followed the performance up with major roles in Passport to Destiny and Come to the Stable, the latter of which earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress.
The actress, who passed away at the age of 84 in 1986, started her career in 1927 with a role in the silent film, One of the Best. Before becoming an actress, Elsa was a cabaret singer performing old Victorian songs at the Cave of Harmony; however, she eventually became a stage actress after landing a role in Mr. Prohack.
This role would change her life, as it would lead her to meet her future husband, the Hollywood actor Charles Laughton. The couple married in 1927 and remained together until Charles sadly died at the age of 63 in 1962.
Read on for all you need to know about the couple’s relationship, including the 12 times that they appeared together on-screen.
Charles Laughton
Charles initially started his career as a stage actor, however, his success led him to appear on Broadway before transitioning into Hollywood. He won an Oscar for Best Actor in 1933’s The Private Life of Henry VIII, and received further nominations for his roles in Mutiny on the Bounty and Witness for the Prosecution.
Elsa and Charles married two years after meeting on the set of Mr. Prohack. Their union started a decades-long career, which saw the pair often appear alongside each other.
These films are Potiphar’s Wife, The Private Life of Henry VIII, Rembrandt, Vessel of Wrath, Tales of Manhattan, Forever and a Day, The Canterville Ghost, The Suspect, The Spiral Staircase, The Big Clock, Salome and Witness for the Prosecution.
Despite appearing with one another, the couple rarely played on-screen lovers, with Elsa thinking it could be dangerous for their relationship. She once wrote: “You don’t have to remember how you look at a person you live with.
© Getty Images“You just have to be yourself, but when you get home you feel as if you had given yourself away, and that your private life has been exposed. It is rather like going to bed in a shop window. It is dangerous for one’s real relationship.“
Although Charles wasn’t always considered to be a leading man, he was always supported by Elsa. Writing in an article for The Atlantic in 1938, he penned: “This is the nicest husband-and-wife story I know. I was cast in On the Spot, Edgar Wallace’s play, in which I had to wear smart clothes and go around the stage kissing the women. I came home one night in a state of despair, sullen and nasty, and said to Elsa: ‘I know they won’t stand for this. I have got a face like an elephant’s behind, and in this play, I have got to do the big sex act.’
© Getty Images“She turned round on me like the proverbial tiger cat and whipped out: ‘How dare you presume you are unattractive! Hold your shoulders back, keep your head up and smile, so that I can hold my head up with other women.’“
Elsa and Charles remained married until the actor died at the age of 63 on 15 December 1962. Charles was admitted to hospital in July 1962 with a ruptured disc, which was discovered to be a vertebrae collapse. He left hospital in November following a surgery, before falling into a coma and passing away from renal and bladder cancer.
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