Episode # 23 Guest Star: Elsa Lanchester

- June 11, 2018

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986) was an English actress with a long career in theatre, film and television. Lanchester studied dance as a child and after the First World War began performing in theatre and cabaret, where she established her career over the following decade. She met the actor Charles Laughton in 1927, and they were married two years later. She began playing small roles in British films, including the role of Anne of Cleves with Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933). His success in American films resulted in the couple moving to Hollywood, where Lanchester played small film roles.

Her role as the title character in Bride of Frankenstein (1935) brought her recognition. She played supporting roles through the 1940s and 1950s. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Come to the Stable (1949) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957), the last of twelve films in which she appeared with Laughton. Lanchester played a witch in Bell, Book and Candle (1958), and appeared in such films as Mary Poppins (1964), That Darn Cat! (1965) and Blackbeard's Ghost(1968). She appeared on 9 April 1959, on NBC's The Ford Show, Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford. She performed in two episodes of NBC's The Wonderful World of Disney. Additionally, she had memorable guest roles in an episode of I Love Lucy in 1956 and in episodes of NBC's The Eleventh Hour (1964) and The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (1965).

In March 1983, Lanchester released an autobiography, entitled Elsa Lanchester Herself. In the book she alleges that she and Laughton never had children because he was homosexual. Shortly after the release of her autobiography, Lanchester's health took a turn for the worse. She required constant care and was confined to bedrest. In March 1986, the Motion Picture and Television Fund filed to become conservator of Lanchester and her estate which was valued at $900,000. Elsa Lanchester died in Woodland Hills, California on 26 December 1986 aged 84, at the Motion Picture Hospital from bronchopneumonia. Her body was cremated on 5 January 1987, at the Chapel of the Pines in Los Angeles and her ashes scattered over the Pacific Ocean.
To read the complete entry on Elsa Lanchester in Wikipedia, click here.

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