Elsa Lanchester (Actor)

Reviews of Elsa Lanchester Movies

Looking for reviews of Elsa Lanchester movies? Cinafilm has a total of 3,247 reviews across 35 movies.

Movies starring Elsa Lanchester have generally received positive reviews and hold an average score of 65%.

Witness for the Prosecution - released in 1957 - is Elsa Lanchester's highest rated movie, with a score of 87% based on 421 reviews.

The lowest rated film from Elsa Lanchester is Pajama Party - released in 1964 - with a score of 43% based on 12 reviews.

Actor Biography

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).

Elsa Lanchester has acted in films with Charles Laughton, J. Pat O'Malley, Bess Flowers and Una O'Connor.

Elsa Lanchester has worked with these film directors: Robert Stevenson, Henry Koster, René Clair and Edmund Goulding.