Finally allowed by his family to become a drama student at RADA in 1925, Laughton made his first professional stage appearance on 28 April 1926 at the Barnes Theatre, as Osip in the comedy The Government Inspector, in which he also appeared at the London Gaiety Theatre in May.

Laughton also directed a staged reading in 1953 of Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body, a full-length poem about the American Civil War and its aftermath.

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.

:: police drama, Laughton is also the director ( American version of Alibi )

:: drama, Laughton is also the director

:: comedy, Laughton is also the director

:: police drama, Laughton also acts in the play.

:: drama, Laughton also acts in the play.

:: comedy, Laughton also acts in the play

: also Earl of Clare ( 1714 ), Baron Pelham of Laughton ( 1706 ), Baron Pelham of Stanmer ( 1762 ) and Pelham Baronet, of Laughton ( 1611 )

: 1st Duke: also Duke of Newcastle-upon-Tyne ( 1715 ), Earl of Clare ( 1714 ), Baron Pelham of Laughton ( 1706 ), Baron Pelham of Stanmer ( 1762 ) and Pelham Baronet, of Laughton ( 1611 )

American Decca also released several notable spoken word albums, such as a recording of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol starring Ronald Colman as Scrooge, and a recording of the Christmas chapter from The Pickwick Papers read by Charles Laughton.

She then had another substantial part when she appeared again with her husband in the screen version of Agatha Christie's play Witness for the Prosecution ( 1957 ) for which both received Academy Award nominations-she for the second time as Best Supporting Actress, and Laughton, also for the second time, for Best Actor.

Callow has also written biographies of Oscar Wilde, Charles Laughton and Orson Welles.

He played Dr. David Livingstone opposite Spencer Tracy's Henry Morton Stanley in the 1939 film Stanley and Livingstone and was also memorable that year as Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with Charles Laughton as Quasimodo.

Laughton also starred in the Broadway run of the play which was retitled The Fatal Alibi and opened at the Booth Theatre on February 8, 1932.

In 1953, she was directed by Charles Laughton in his own adaptation of Stephen Vincent Benét's John Brown's Body with a cast also featuring Raymond Massey and Tyrone Power.

There have been four Broadway revivals, in 1928 at the Guild Theatre, 1956 at the Martin Beck Theatre and then the Morosco Theatre starring Glynis Johns, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Eli Wallach, Burgess Meredith, and Charles Laughton, who also directed, in 1980 at the Circle in the Square Theatre, and 2001 at the American Airlines Theatre, with Cherry Jones in the title role.

In addition to giving his name to the St Leger Stakes, the St Leger Arms public house in Laughton en le Morthen ( two miles up the road from the Park Hill estate ) is also named after Anthony St Leger.

Charles Laughton was also nominated for a British Academy Film Award for Best Foreign Actor.

She also appeared in the once controversial Jean Harlow film Red-Headed Woman ( 1932 ), the musical comedy The Big Broadcast ( 1932 ) with Bing Crosby, George Burns and Gracie Allen, and was widely praised for her comedic performance in Ruggles of Red Gap ( 1935 ) opposite Charles Laughton and Charlie Ruggles.

She also scored a casting coup by featuring Charles Laughton at the theatre in 1933 after he had become a worldwide name in the film The Private Life of Henry VIII.

Other spoken word albums included Lullaby of Christmas, narrated by Gregory Peck, a twenty minute version of Moby Dick, with Charles Laughton as Captain Ahab, and The Littlest Angel, narrated by Loretta Young.

The bulk of the story takes place in the lavish home of Edward Barrett ( Charles Laughton ) and his adult children.

The climax of the film is Laughton ’ s recitation of the Gettysburg Address ( something that does not happen in the original story ).

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 played a cowardly schoolmaster in occupied France in This Land is Mine ( 1943 ), by Jean Renoir, in which he engaged himself most actively ; in fact, while Renoir was still working on an early script, Laughton would talk about Alphonse Daudet's story " The Last Lesson ", which suggested to Renoir a relevant scene for the film.

In 1943, Laughton recorded a reading of the Nativity story from St. Luke's Gospel, and this was released in 1995 on CD on a Nimbus Records collection entitled Prima Voce: The Spirit of Christmas Past.

In the popular film made by Hitchcock in 1939 with the pirate's story line, the heroine ’ s role of a young girl who encounters the gangsters in the Jamaica Inn as “ Lady Vanishes ” was played by Maureen O ’ Hara in her debut appearance while the main role of the ugly and fierce leader of the pirates was played by Laughton.

Charles Laughton wound up introducing Presley on the Sullivan hour.

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.

McLaglen won Best Actor for his portrayal of Gypo Nolan, beating out Charles Laughton, Clark Gable, and Franchot Tone for the better-remembered Mutiny on the Bounty, and Ford won Best Director.

Ruggles of Red Gap was adapted as a radio play on the July 10, 1939 episode of Lux Radio Theater, the December 17, 1945 episode of The Screen Guild Theater and the June 8, 1946 episode of Academy Award Theater, all with Charles Laughton and Charlie Ruggles reprising their film parts.

Laughton was trained in London at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art ( RADA ) and first appeared professionally on the stage in 1926.

Laughton commenced his film career in England while still acting on the London stage.

His association with director Alexander Korda began in 1933 with The Private Life of Henry VIII ( loosely based on the life of King Henry VIII ), for which Laughton won an Academy Award.

Then came The Barretts of Wimpole Street ( 1934 ) as Norma Shearer's character's malevolent father ( although Laughton was only three years older than Shearer ); Les Misérables ( 1935 ) as Inspector Javert ; one of his most famous screen roles in Mutiny on the Bounty ( 1935 ) as Captain William Bligh, co-starring with Clark Gable as Fletcher Christian ; and Ruggles of Red Gap ( 1935 ) as the very English butler transported to early 1900s America.

Laughton made his first color film in Paris as Inspector Maigret in The Man on the Eiffel Tower ( 1949 ) and, wrote the Monthly Film Bulletin, " appeared to overact " alongside Boris Karloff as a mad French nobleman in a version of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Door in 1951.

Laughton made a guest appearance on the Colgate Comedy Hour, featuring Abbott and Costello, in which he delivered the Gettysburg Address.

Laughton worked on the film, which was directed by Otto Preminger, while he was dying from metastatic renal cell carcinoma ( kidney cancer ).

In the U. S., Laughton worked with Bertolt Brecht on a new English version of Brecht's play Galileo.

Laughton played the title role at the play's premiere in Los Angeles on 30 July 1947 and later that year in New York.

Although he did not appear in any later plays, Laughton toured the U. S. with staged readings, including a very successful appearance on the Stanford University campus in 1960.

Laughton was the fill-in host on 9 September 1956, when Elvis Presley made his first of three appearances on CBS's The Ed Sullivan Show, which garnered 72 million viewers ( Ed Sullivan was recuperating from a car accident ).

That same year, Laughton hosted the first of two programs devoted to classical music entitled " Festival of Music ", and telecast on the NBC television anthology series Producers ' Showcase.