#Fact1After George Arliss he became the second British actor to win an Academy Award, but was the first to win for a British film (The Private Life of Henry VIII. (1933)).2Was Karen Dotrice's godfather.3During the filming of "Jamaica Inn" (1939), he allegedly became captivated by his teenage co-star Maureen O'Hara, who was introduced in the film, and even spoke about wanting to adopt her. His wife, Elsa Lanchester, later dismissed this as a passing whim and suggested that O'Hara had exploited his kindness in her ambition to get ahead (her first Hollywood film, later that same year, starred Laughton). Lanchester never tried to hide her dislike of O'Hara, famously saying of her that "she always looked as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth - or anywhere else!"; in her memoirs, O'Hara made her dislike of Lanchester equally clear.4Is one of 13 actors who have received an Academy Award nomination for his portrayal of a real-life king. The others in chronological order are Robert Morley for Marie Antoinette (1938), Basil Rathbone for If I Were King (1938), Laurence Olivier for Henry V (1944) and Richard III (1955), José Ferrer for Joan of Arc (1948), Yul Brynner for The King and I (1956), John Gielgud for Becket (1964), Peter O'Toole for Becket (1964) and The Lion in Winter (1968), Robert Shaw for A Man for All Seasons (1966), Richard Burton for Anne of the Thousand Days (1969), Kenneth Branagh for Henry V (1989), Nigel Hawthorne for The Madness of King George (1994), and Colin Firth for The King's Speech (2010).5He was awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 7021 Hollywood Boulevard in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.6Had 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).7He has two roles in common with Derek Jacobi: (1) Laughton played the Roman Emperor Claudius in I, Claudius (1937) while Jacobi played him in I, Claudius (1976) and (2) Laughton played Gracchus in Spartacus (1960) while Jacobi played him in Gladiator (2000).8He played the Roman Emperor Nero in The Sign of the Cross (1932) and his great-uncle and predecessor Claudius in I, Claudius (1937).9Won an Oscar for playing King Henry VIII of England. Years later, Robert Shaw would be nominated for playing the role, making them the first pair of actors to receive an Oscar nomination for playing the same part. A couple of years later Richard Burton would also be nominated for portraying Henry VIII making it the only part to get nominated for 3 Oscars. The first pair to actually win was Marlon Brando and Robert De Niro for playing Don Vito Corleone in the first two Godfather films. Other pairs included: José Ferrer (who won) and Gérard Depardieu (nominated) for playing Cyrano de Bergerac, Jason Robards and Leonardo DiCaprio (both nominated) for playing Howard Hughes, John Wayne (won) and Jeff Bridges (nominated) for playing Rooster Cogburn, and Anthony Hopkins and Frank Langella (both nominated) for playing former President Richard Nixon.10He was, so far, the only actor to receive an Academy Award for playing King Henry VIII of England.11He played a Navy Captain whose crew mutinies against him in Mutiny on the Bounty (1935). Appropriately, he went on to direct another story about a Captain with a mutinous crew, "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial".12Was the first choice to play Professor Henry Higgins in Pygmalion (1938) which he turned down, however. Leslie Howard was cast instead.13He and his wife were both active in liberal politics.14He was diagnosed with cancer of the gall bladder in January 1962 after being hospitalized with a collapsed vertebrae following a fall in the bath. Over the course of his final eleven months, his weight dropped to just ninety pounds.15He was close friends with Burgess Meredith.16In later years, he was frequently accused by the critics of having a tendency to ham, although he remained a popular star.17Was the original choice to play the role of Colonel Nicholson in The Bridge on the River Kwai (1957). He turned down the role, saying he did not know how to play it convincingly as he did not understand the motivations of the character. He said he only understood the character after seeing the completed film and Alec Guinness' performance.18Was 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.19Was the first actor to play Roman Emperor Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, in the aborted film version of Robert Graves' I, Claudius (1937). Production was suspended after Laughton's co-star Merle Oberon, playing his wife Messalina, was involved in an automobile accident in which she crashed through the car's windshield and sustained cuts to her face. The decision was made to shut down the production and the costs were reimbursed to producer Alexander Korda's London Films by Lloyds of London.20Had 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.".21Laughton 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).22He was twice was the Mystery Guest on the popular television quiz show What's My Line (1951).23He had always wanted to play Lear in the stage production of "King Lear" at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, but he passed away before the play was ever staged. However, he did play Lear on the stage.24He 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.25Became an agnostic after his experiences as a soldier during World War I.26He was very disappointed by the commercial failure of The Night of the Hunter (1955).27Was 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).28Served during World War I. In spite of having Public School education and Officer Training (in Stonyhurst College's OTC), he chose to join the Army as a private in 1917. 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.29In a memoir written after his death, Laughton's widow, Elsa Lanchester, stated they never had children because he was homosexual. However, according to Maureen O'Hara, Laughton once told her that not having children was his biggest regret, and that it was because Elsa could not bear children as a result of an botched abortion she had early in her career while performing burlesque. Lanchester admitted becoming pregnant by Laughton and aborting the child in her autobiography.30Discovered actress Maureen O'Hara at age 18 and immediately signed her under contract as his protégée.31He greatly disliked children. Because of his disdain for them and the fact that he had to work with them in The Night of the Hunter (1955), most of the scenes with the children were directed by star Robert Mitchum, who had three children of his own.32In 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).33After 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.34Was 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.35A highly regarded drama teacher, whose students included Albert Finney and William Phipps, Laughton would play Billie Holiday records for his students as an illustration of vocal inflection techniques.36Gave highly successful one-man reading tours for many years, his material ranging from the Bible to Jack Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums".37Although he directed only one film, The Night of the Hunter (1955), Laughton was a prolific stage director, staging the original Broadway productions of George Bernard Shaw's "Don Juan in Hell" (in which he also appeared), Herman Wouk's "The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial" and Stephen Vincent Benet's "John Brown's Body".38Became a United States citizen in 1950.39For 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.40Robert 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.41In the 1928 play "Alibi", he became the first actor to play Agatha Christie's detective Hercule Poirot.42Following his death, he was interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park (Hollywood Hills) in Los Angeles, California, in the Court of Remembrance.

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