Editing Elsa Lanchester (section)

==Career==
After World War I, Lanchester started the Children's Theatre, and later the Cave of Harmony, a nightclub at which modern plays and cabaret turns were performed. She revived old Victorian songs and ballads, many of which she retained for her performances in another revue entitled ''Riverside Nights''. Her first film performance came in 1924 in the amateur production ''The Scarlet Woman'', which was written by [[Evelyn Waugh]] who also appeared in two roles himself.<ref>[https://www.evelynwaugh.org.uk/styled-2/index.html Information about ''The Scarlet Woman'' on the Evelyn Waugh website]</ref><ref>[https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-the-scarlet-woman-1924-online Complete film and information at the British Film Institute]</ref>

She became sufficiently famous for Columbia to invite her into the recording studio to make 78 rpm discs of four of the numbers she sang in these revues, with piano arrangement and accompaniment by [[Kay Henderson (pianist)|Kay Henderson]]: "Please Sell No More Drink to My Father" and "He Didn't Oughter" were on one disc (recorded in 1926) and "Don't Tell My Mother I'm Living in Sin" and "The Ladies Bar" were on the other (recorded 1930).<ref name="Maltin p. 494">Maltin 1994, p. 494.</ref> Her cabaret and nightclub appearances led to more serious stage work and it was in a play by [[Arnold Bennett]] called ''Mr Prohack'' (1927) that Lanchester first met another member of the cast, [[Charles Laughton]]. They were married two years later and continued to act together from time to time, both on stage and screen. She played his daughter in the stage play ''[[Payment Deferred]]'' (1931) though not in the subsequent Hollywood film version. Lanchester and Laughton appeared in the [[Old Vic]] season of 1933–34, playing Shakespeare, Chekhov and Wilde, and in 1936 she was [[Peter Pan]] to Laughton's Captain Hook in [[J. M. Barrie]]'s play at the [[London Palladium]]. Their last stage appearance together was in [[Jane Arden (director)|Jane Arden]]'s ''[[The Party (1958 play)|The Party]]'' (1958) at the [[Noël Coward Theatre|New Theatre]], London.<ref name="Maltin p. 494" />[[File:Bride gip.jpg|right|thumb|219x219px|[[Colin Clive]], Lanchester, [[Boris Karloff]] and [[Ernest Thesiger]] in ''[[Bride of Frankenstein]]'' (1935)]]
[[File:Bride of Frankenstein (1935 pictorial snipe).jpg|thumb|Universal's art director [[Karoly Grosz (illustrator)|Karoly Grosz]] designed this offbeat 1935 advertisement featuring Lanchester and [[Boris Karloff]]|left|270x270px]]Lanchester made her film debut in ''The Scarlet Woman'' (1925) and in 1928 appeared in three silent shorts written for her by [[H. G. Wells]] and directed by [[Ivor Montagu]]: ''Blue Bottles'', ''Daydreams'' and ''The Tonic''. Laughton made brief appearances in all of them. They also appeared together in a 1930 [[film revue]] entitled ''Comets'', featuring British stage, musical and variety acts, in which they sang in duet "[[Frankie and Johnny (song)|The Ballad of Frankie and Johnnie]]". Lanchester appeared in several other early British talkies, including ''[[Potiphar's Wife (1931 film)|Potiphar's Wife]]'' (1931), a film starring [[Laurence Olivier]]. She appeared opposite Laughton again as [[Anne of Cleves]] in ''[[The Private Life of Henry VIII]]'' (1933), with Laughton in [[Henry VIII|the title role]]. Laughton was by now making films in Hollywood, so Lanchester joined him there, making minor appearances in ''[[David Copperfield (1935 film)|David Copperfield]]'' (1935) and ''[[Naughty Marietta (film)|Naughty Marietta]]'' (1935). These and her appearances in British films helped her gain the [[Bride of Frankenstein (character)|title role]] in ''[[Bride of Frankenstein]]'' (1935), arguably the role with which she remains most identified. She and Laughton returned to Britain to appear together again in ''[[Rembrandt (1936 film)|Rembrandt]]'' (1936) and later in ''[[Vessel of Wrath]]'' (US: ''The Beachcomber''. 1938).<ref name="Maltin p. 494" /> They both returned to Hollywood, where he made ''[[The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939 film)|The Hunchback of Notre Dame]]'' (1939)  although Lanchester didn't appear in another film until ''[[Ladies in Retirement]]'' (1941). She and Laughton played husband and wife (their characters were named Charles and Elsa Smith) in ''[[Tales of Manhattan]]'' (1942) and they both appeared again in the all-star, mostly British cast of ''[[Forever and a Day (1943 film)|Forever and a Day]]'' (1943). She received top billing in ''[[Passport to Destiny]]'' (1944) for the only time in her Hollywood career.<ref name="RKO">Jewell and Harbin 1982, p. 193.</ref>
[[File:ELSA-L.jpg|thumb|236x236px|Lanchester in the 1940s]]
Lanchester played supporting roles in ''[[The Spiral Staircase (1946 film)|The Spiral Staircase]]'' and ''[[The Razor's Edge (1946 film)|The Razor's Edge]]'' (both 1946). She appeared as the housekeeper in ''[[The Bishop's Wife]]'' (1947) with [[David Niven]] playing the bishop, [[Loretta Young]] his wife, and [[Cary Grant]] an angel. Lanchester played a comical role as an artist in the thriller, ''[[The Big Clock (film)|The Big Clock]]'' (1948), in which Laughton starred as a [[wiktionary:megalomania|megalomaniacal]] press tycoon. She had a part as a painter specialising in nativity scenes in ''[[Come to the Stable]]'' (1949), for which she was nominated for the [[Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress]] (1949).<ref name="Maltin p. 494" /> During the late 1940s and 1950s she appeared in small but highly varied supporting roles in a number of films while simultaneously appearing on stage at the ''[[Turnabout Theatre]]'' in Hollywood.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794401,00.html|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100516055445/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,794401,00.html|url-status=dead|archive-date=16 May 2010|title=Theater: Elsa's Gazebo|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|location=New York City|date=24 May 1948}}</ref> Here she performed her solo vaudeville act in conjunction with a marionette show, singing somewhat off-colour songs which she later recorded for a couple of LPs.<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20110131123905/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,813718,00.html "Music: New Pitch in the Persian Room"], time.com, 6 November 1950.</ref><ref>
{{AllMusic|class=artist|id=p21762|label=Elsa Lanchester}}
</ref> Onscreen, she appeared alongside [[Danny Kaye]] in ''[[The Inspector General (1949 film)|The Inspector General]]'' (1949), played a blackmailing landlady in ''[[Mystery Street]]'' (1950), and was [[Shelley Winters]]'s travelling companion in ''[[Frenchie (film)|Frenchie]]'' (1950). More supporting roles followed in the early 1950s, including a 2-minute cameo as the Bearded Lady in ''[[3 Ring Circus]]'' (1954), about to be shaved by [[Jerry Lewis]]. She had another substantial and memorable part when she appeared again with her husband in ''[[Witness for the Prosecution (1957 film)|Witness for the Prosecution]]'' (1957) a screen version of [[Agatha Christie]]'s [[Witness for the Prosecution (play)|1953 play]] for which both received [[Academy Award]] nominations&nbsp;– she for the second time as Best Supporting Actress, and Laughton for the third time for Best Actor. Neither won. However she did win the [[Golden Globe]] for Best Supporting Actress for the film.

Lanchester played the role of Aunt Queenie, a witch in ''[[Bell, Book and Candle]]'' (1958), and appeared in such films as ''[[Mary Poppins (film)|Mary Poppins]]'' (1964), in which her husband's goddaughter [[Karen Dotrice]] also starred, ''[[That Darn Cat! (1965 film)|That Darn Cat!]]'' (1965), and ''[[Blackbeard's Ghost]]'' (1968). She appeared on 9 April 1959, on [[NBC]]'s ''[[The Ford Show|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 (1962 TV series)|The Eleventh Hour]]'' (1964) and ''[[The Man From U.N.C.L.E.]]'' (1965).<ref name="Fan">Favell, Jack. [https://www.tcm.com/?threadID=133073 "A Fan Tribute to Elsa Lanchester"], Turner Classic Movies; retrieved 19 May 2013.</ref> Lanchester continued to make occasional film appearances, singing a duet with [[Elvis Presley]] in ''[[Easy Come, Easy Go (1967 film)|Easy Come, Easy Go]]'' (1967), and playing the mother in the original version of ''[[Willard (1971 film)|Willard]]'' (1971), alongside [[Bruce Davison]] and [[Ernest Borgnine]], which scored well at the box office. She was Jessica Marbles, a sleuth based on [[Agatha Christie]]'s [[Miss Marple|Jane Marple]], in the 1976 murder mystery spoof ''[[Murder by Death]]'', and she made her last film in 1980 as Sophie in ''[[Die Laughing (film)|Die Laughing]]''. She released three LP albums in the 1950s. Two (referred to above) 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. Laughton provided the spoken introductions to each number and even joined Lanchester in the singing of "[[She Was Poor but She Was Honest]]". Her third LP was entitled ''Cockney London'', a selection of old London songs for which Laughton wrote the sleeve-notes.<ref>{{Cite news |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/richmond-times-dispatch-look-listen/148842466/ |title=Look & Listen |newspaper=[[Richmond Times-Dispatch]] |page=72 |date=1961-08-06 |access-date=2024-06-06 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>