Elsa Lanchester
Birthday: 1902-10-28 Place of Birth: Lewisham, London, England, UK
Synopsis
Elsa Sullivan Lanchester (28 October 1902 – 26 December 1986) was an English-American character 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). Laughton's success in American films resulted in the couple moving to Hollywood, where Lanchester played small film roles. Her role as the bride in Bride of Frankenstein (1935), brought her recognition, and came to be one of the roles most closely associated with her throughout her life. Lanchester 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. Following Laughton's death in 1962, Lanchester resumed her career with appearances in such Disney films as Mary Poppins (1964), That Darn Cat! (1965) and Blackbeard's Ghost (1968). The horror film, Willard, (1971) was highly successful and one of her last roles was in Murder By Death (1976). Description above from the Wikipedia article Elsa Lanchester, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia
Acting
Cinema's Exiles: From Hitler to Hollywood
Eight hundred German filmmakers (cast and crew) fled the Nazis in the 1930s. The film uses voice-overs, archival footage, and film clips to examine Berlin's vital filmmaking in the 1920s; then it follows a producer, directors, composers, editors, writers, and actors to Hollywood: some succeeded and many found no work. Among those profiled are Erich Pommer, Joseph May, Ernst Lubitsch, Fritz Lang, Billy Wilder, and Peter Lorre. Once in Hollywood, these exiles helped each other, housed new arrivals, and raised money so others could escape. Some worked on anti-Nazi films, like Casablanca. The themes and lighting of German Expressionism gave rise in Hollywood to film noir.
Murder by Death
Lionel Twain invites the world's five greatest detectives to a 'dinner and murder'. Included are a blind butler, a deaf-mute maid, screams, spinning rooms, secret passages, false identities and more plot turns and twists than are decently allowed.
Arnold
Karen marries Arnold at his funeral and continues to get his money as long as she stays by his coffin. Meanwhile, various oddball relatives after Arnold's wealth are being killed in a creative variety of ways.
Terror in the Wax Museum
Terrifying wax figures of renowned personalities, such as Attila the Hun and Jack the Ripper, surround the sale of a London museum.
Willard
A social misfit, Willard is made fun of by his co-workers, and squeezed out of the company started by his deceased father by his boss. His only friends are a couple of rats he raised at home, Ben and Socrates. However, when one of them is killed at work, he goes on a rampage using his rats to attack those who have been tormenting him.
In Name Only
In this romantic comedy, an unwed couple who run a wedding planning business discover, to their horror, that the Justice of the Peace who had officiated their first three weddings was only an actor. Hilarity ensues as they set about trying to get these marrieds married...again.
My Dog the Thief
As ratings for Jack Crandall's lifeless airborne traffic reports plummet, a super-size St. Bernard on the lam stows away in his chopper. Crandall's new co-pilot helps send ratings sky-high, but the canine's chronic kleptomania generates girl trouble, jewel thievery, and loads of laughs.
Blackbeard's Ghost
The eponymous wraith returns to Earth to aid his descendant, elderly Emily Stowecroft. The villains want to kick Emily and her friends out of their group home so that they can build a crooked casino. Good guy Steve Walker gets caught in the middle of the squabble after evoking Blackbeard's ghost.
Mary Poppins
Mr Banks is looking for a nanny for his two mischievous children and comes across Mary Poppins, an angelic nanny. She not only brings a change in their lives but also spreads happiness.
The John Forsythe Show
The John Forsythe Show began as a situation comedy in the fall of 1965 on NBC, but at mid-season it switched to a spy show. In the first phase of the series, John Forsythe appeared as United States Air Force veteran John Foster, who inherited the private Foster School for Girls in San Francisco, California, from his late aunt, Victoria. Forsythe's co-stars were Elsa Lanchester as the principal, Miss Culver; Ann B. Davis, as the physical education teacher, Miss Wilson; and Guy Marks as Ed Robbins, Forsythe's aide and a former sergeant. Actors who portrayed students included Pamelyn Ferdin as Pamela, Darlene Carr as Kathy, Page and Brooke Forsythe as Marcia and Norma Jean, Peggy Lipton, as Joanna, Tracy Stratford as Susan, and Sara Ballantine as Janice.
NBC advertising in February, 1965, gave a working title of The Mr. and The Misses.
When the format changed to espionage, it was explained to viewers that Major Foster had been recalled to active duty as a secret agent. All the other regulars except Forsythe and Marks were dropped from the cast. Peter Kortner was the producer of the series, which aired twenty-nine episodes from September 13, 1965, to August 29, 1966. The series was produced by Forsythe's own company in conjunction with Universal Television Studios. Earl Bellamy was the director.
That Darn Cat!
A young woman suspects foul play when her cat comes home wearing a wristwatch. Convincing the FBI, though, and catching the bad guys is tougher than she imagined.
Pajama Party
A Martian teenager sent to prepare for an invasion falls in love with an Earth girl.
Witness for the Prosecution
When Leonard Vole is arrested for the sensational murder of a rich, middle-aged widow, the famous Sir Wilfrid Robarts agrees to appear on his behalf. Sir Wilfrid, recovering from a near-fatal heart attack, is supposed to be on a diet of bland, civil suits—but the lure of the criminal courts is too much for him, especially when the case is so difficult.
The Glass Slipper
Musical adaptation of the story of Cinderella and her magical trip to the prince's ball.
Hell's Half Acre
A woman travels to Hawaii to find out if a man in prison there is actually her missing husband.
3 Ring Circus
Jerry and Pete are two friends with no money and are looking for a job. They finally find employment working in a circus, but Jerry has different dreams. He wants to become a clown.
The Girls of Pleasure Island
In the spring of 1945, World War II is coming to a close. Roger Halyard, a dignified, strait-laced Englishmen, lives on a South Sea atoll with his three daughters, Gloria, Hester and Violet, along with the housekeeper, Thelma, who has raised the girls since childhood. Other than their father, the girls have never seen another man. Halyard is informed that 1500 U.S. Marines will soon arrive to establish an air base on the island. Halyard is rather apprehensive over the prospect of his daughters, who have never met another man, being thrown together with 1500 Marines who haven't seen a woman in months.
Les Miserables
Jean Valjean, a Frenchman of good character, has nevertheless been convicted for the minor crime of stealing bread. A minor infraction leads to his pursuit by the relentless policeman Javert, a pursuit that consumes both men's lives for many years.
Androcles and the Lion
George Bernard Shaw’s breezy, delightful dramatization of this classic fable—about a Christian slave who pulls a thorn from a lion’s paw and is spared from death in the Colosseum as a result of his kind act—was written as a meditation on modern Christian values. Pascal’s final Shaw production is played broadly, with comic character actor Alan Young as the titular naïf. He’s ably supported by Jean Simmons, Victor Mature, Robert Newton, and Elsa Lanchester.
Buccaneer's Girl
A New Orleans performer loves a pirate who robs only from the shipowner who ruined his father.
Mystery Street
When a young woman's skeletal remains turn up on a Massachusetts beach, Barnstable cop Peter Moralas teams with Boston police and uses forensics, with the help of a Harvard professor, to determine the woman's identity, how she died, and who killed her.
The Inspector General
An illiterate stooge in a traveling medicine show wanders into a strange town and is picked up on a vagrancy charge. The town's corrupt officials mistake him for the inspector general whom they think is traveling in disguise. Fearing he will discover they've been pocketing tax money, they make several bungled attempts to kill him.
The Secret Garden
When Cholera takes the parents of Mary Lennox, she is shipped from India to England to live with her Uncle Craven. Mary changes the lives of those she encounters at her Uncle's remote estate.
The Big Clock
Stroud, a crime magazine's crusading editor has to post-pone a vacation with his wife, again, when a glamorous blonde is murdered and he is assigned by his publishing boss Janoth to find the killer. As the investigation proceeds to its conclusion, Stroud must try to disrupt his ordinarily brilliant investigative team as they increasingly build evidence (albeit wrong) that he is the killer.
The Bishop's Wife
An Episcopal Bishop, Henry Brougham, has been working for months on the plans for an elaborate new cathedral which he hopes will be paid for primarily by a wealthy, stubborn widow. He is losing sight of his family and of why he became a churchman in the first place. Enter Dudley, an angel sent to help him. Dudley does help everyone he meets, but not necessarily in the way they would have preferred. With the exception of Henry, everyone loves him, but Henry begins to believe that Dudley is there to replace him, both at work and in his family's affections, as Christmas approaches.
The Razor's Edge
An adventurous young man goes off to find himself and loses his socialite fiancée in the process. But when he returns 10 years later, she will stop at nothing to get him back, even though she is already married.
The Spiral Staircase
On a stormy night, the mute servant to an ailing matriarch is stalked by a serial killer.
Passport to Destiny
A British war widow travels to Berlin to assassinate Hitler.
Lassie Come Home
Hard times come for the Carraclough family and they are forced to sell their dog, Lassie, to the rich Duke of Rudling. Lassie, however, is unwilling to remain apart from young Carraclough son Joe and sets out on a long and dangerous journey to rejoin him.
