His career began in the theatre ; he made his first appearance on the London stage in 1958 in Jane Arden's The Party, directed by Charles Laughton, who starred in the production along with his wife, Elsa Lanchester.

After I, Claudius, he and the ex-patriate German film producer Erich Pommer founded the production company Mayflower Pictures in the UK, which produced three films starring Laughton: Vessel of Wrath ( US Title The Beachcomber ) ( 1938 ), based on a story by W. Somerset Maugham, in which his wife Elsa Lanchester co-starred ; St. Martin's Lane ( US Title Sidewalks of London ), about London street entertainers, which featured Vivien Leigh and Rex Harrison ; and Jamaica Inn, with Maureen O ' Hara and Robert Newton, about Cornish smugglers, based on Daphne du Maurier's novel, and the last film Alfred Hitchcock directed in Britain before moving to Hollywood in the late 1930s.

Laughton returned to the London stage in May 1958 to direct and star in Jane Arden's The Party at the New Theatre which also had Elsa Lanchester and Albert Finney in the cast.

In 1927, Laughton began a relationship with Elsa Lanchester, at the time a cast mate in a stage play.

Lanchester portrayed Anne of Cleves, Henry VIII's fourth wife, opposite Laughton in The Private Life of Henry VIII.

They both received Academy Award nominations for their performances in Witness for the Prosecution ( 1957 ) — Laughton for Best Actor, and Lanchester for Best Supporting Actress — but neither won.

Laughton and Lanchester had no children.

Laughton's bisexuality has been corroborated by several of his contemporaries and is generally accepted by Hollywood historians, However, actress Maureen O ' Hara, a friend and co-star of Laughton, claimed that Laughton told her that he and his wife never had children because of a botched abortion which Lanchester had early in her career while performing burlesque and that indeed his biggest regret was never having children of his own.

In her own autobiography, Lanchester acknowledged having had two abortions in her youth ( one of the pregnancies purportedly by Laughton ) although she didn't mention whether this had indeed left her incapable of becoming pregnant again.

Lanchester married Charles Laughton in 1929.

Laughton was by now making films in Hollywood so Lanchester joined him there, making minor appearances in David Copperfield ( 1935 ) and Naughty Marietta ( 1935 ).

She claimed Laughton had told her that the reason he and his wife never had children was because of a botched abortion Lanchester had early in her career while performing burlesque.

Lanchester admitted in her autobiography that she had had two abortions in her youth ( one of whom was sired by Laughton ), but it is not clear if these left her incapable of becoming pregnant again.

* Lanchester, Elsa Charles Laughton and I ( 1938 )

* Charles Laughton, actor, and Elsa Lanchester, actress

Modernist painter Wyndham Lewis lived on Percy Street. The house of Charles Laughton and Elsa Lanchester on Tottenham Street now shows a commemorative blue plaque.

Five years later in 1936 he played in a revival of the play, this time taking the bigger role of ' Slightly ', alongside the celebrated husband-wife partnership of Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton ( playing Peter and Hook respectively ).

Real-life married couple Elsa Lanchester and Charles Laughton appear in the film, as does Harry Morgan, in an early film role, as a hired thug.

* The 1938 film The Vessel of Wrath, released in the U. S. as The Beachcomber, starred Charles Laughton as Ginger Ted, Elsa Lanchester as Miss Jones, Robert Newton as the Contrôleur, and Tyrone Guthrie as Reverend Jones.

He appeared with Lanchester again in a " film revue ", featuring assorted British variety acts, called Comets ( 1930 ) in which they sang a duet, " The Ballad of Frankie and Johnnie ".

' Lanchester appeared in several other early British talkies, including Potiphar's Wife ( 1931 ), starring Laurence Olivier.

Lanchester played a jaded witch in Bell, Book and Candle ( 1958 ), and appeared in such light fare as Mary Poppins ( 1964 ), That Darn Cat!

* The role of Anne of Cleves was played by Elsa Lanchester in The Private Life of Henry VIII, which was released in 1933.

Manville died in harness in 1933, Percy Martin was forced out two years later, Frederick Lanchester resigned as consultant in 1936, Laurence Pomeroy was not re-elected to the board and left for de Havilland.

* December 26 – Elsa Lanchester, English actress ( b. 1902 )

Thomas Baker ( 14 September 1656, Lanchester, Durham – 2 July 1740 ) was an English antiquarian.

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester ( 28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986 ) was an English-American character actress with a long career in theatre, film and television.

** Frederick Lanchester ( 1868 – 1946 ) 1907 – 1930 consulting engineer, polymath

* Coventry University – formerly Lanchester Polytechnic then Coventry Polytechnic

He also attempted two new television programs: The John Forsythe Show on NBC with Guy Marks, Elsa Lanchester, Ann B. Davis, Peggy Lipton, and Forsythe's two young daughters, Page and Brooke ( 1965 – 1966 ), and To Rome With Love on CBS ( 1969 – 1971 ) with co-star Walter Brennan.

Frederick William Lanchester, Hon FRAeS FRS ( 23 October 1868 – 8 March 1946 ) was an English polymath and engineer who made important contributions to automotive engineering, aerodynamics and co-invented the field of operations research.

* March 8 – Frederick W. Lanchester ( born 1868 ), automotive engineer.

Following earlier leads by Frederick Lanchester from 1902 – 1907, Prandtl worked with Albert Betz and Max Munk on the problem of a useful mathematical tool for examining lift from " real world " wings.

Three-dimensional lift and the occurrence of wingtip vortices can be approached with the concept of horseshoe vortex and described accurately with the Lanchester – Prandtl theory.

* George Lanchester King ( 1860 – 1941 ), bishop of Madagascar, 1899 – 1919

Lanchester is a village and civil parish in County Durham, England, and was in the former district of Derwentside ( 1975 – 2009 ).

Lanchester continued to make occasional film appearances, singing a duet with Elvis Presley in Easy Come, Easy Go ( 1967 ) and playing the mother in the original version of Willard ( 1971 ).

Although at first they produced separate ranges of cars with the Daimler badge appearing mainly on the larger models, by the mid 1930s the two were increasingly sharing components leading to the 1936 Lanchester 18 / Daimler Light 20 differing in little except trim and grille.

Lanchester studied dance as a child and after World War I began performing in theatre and cabaret, where she established her career over the following decade.

Her first professional experience was in musical theater in 1944, as an ensemble member for four years with the Hollywood Turnabout Puppet Theatre, working alongside Elsa Lanchester ; she later joined the national touring company of the musical Finian's Rainbow in 1949.

The first caliper-type automobile disc brake was patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham, UK factory in 1902 and used successfully on Lanchester cars.

The first caliper-type automobile disc brake was patented by Frederick William Lanchester in his Birmingham factory in 1902 and used successfully on Lanchester cars.

He played the title roles in Arnold Bennett's Mr Prohack ( Elsa Lanchester was also in the cast ) and in Mr Pickwick.

Although he was initially unable to sell his Knight Engine in the United States, a long sojourn in England, involving extensive further development and refinement by Daimler supervised by their consultant Dr Frederick Lanchester eventually secured Daimler and several luxury car firms as customers willing to pay his expensive premiums.

Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born in Lewisham, London, England.

Elsa's brother Waldo Lanchester was a puppeteer, with his own marionette company based in Malvern and later Stratford-upon-Avon, England and a friend of George Bernard Shaw

In March 1986, the Motion Picture and Television Fund filed to become conservator of Lanchester and her estate which was valued at $ 900, 000.

It was nominated for Academy Awards for Best Actress in a Leading Role ( Loretta Young ), Best Actress in a Supporting Role ( Celeste Holm ), Best Actress in a Supporting Role ( Elsa Lanchester ), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Black-and-White ( Lyle Wheeler, Joseph C. Wright, Thomas Little, Paul S. Fox ), Best Cinematography, Best Music, Song ( Alfred Newman and Mack Gordon for " Through a Long and Sleepless Night ") and Best Writing, Motion Picture Story.

Central Hall was designed by Edwin Alfred Rickards, of the firm Lanchester, Stewart and Rickards.

In 1956, Lanchester was wound up, and in 1960, Daimler was purchased by Jaguar.

In 1930 the bulk of Daimler's shareholding in its subsidiary Daimler Hire Limited was sold to the Thomas Tilling Group and, in January 1931, Daimler completed the purchase of The Lanchester Motor Company Limited.

The new Lanchester 15 / 18 model introduced in 1931 was fitted with Daimler's fluid flywheel transmission.