October 28 - Elsa Lanchester

On this day, in 1902, Elsa Sullivan Lanchester was born in Lewisham, London, England. As the daughter of severely Bohemian parents, Elsa was born into a life with theatrical leanings. Her older brother Waldo would start his own marionette company. Prior to World War I, Elsa spent time in Paris studying dance under Isadora Duncan. She hated it so much that she was probably the only person who wasn't terribly sad that war broke out and closed the school. Not that she was done with dance.

During the Great War, as it was then known, 12 year old Elsa began earning extra money for her family by teaching little girls in her South London neighborhood how to dance. And not just how to dance, but how to dance like Isadora Duncan. She wasn't even a teenager yet and she'd already learned how to give the people what they want.

After the Great War ended, Elsa continued in her entrepreneurial vein and started a children's theater and then a nightclub, Cave of Harmony. In the Cave, she performed in both plays and a cabaret act, singing everything from old Victorian ballads to modern tunes. Elsa gained enough notoriety that Columbia Records made a couple of 78 recordings of her (one of the songs being "Please Sell No More Drink to My Father").

Elsa began doing more serious work in the theaters of London. An appearance in a 1927 play called Mr. Prohack introduced her to a fellow cast member she found intriguing, Charles Laughton. Within two years, the pair was married and would act together on stage and screen throughout their lifetimes, including a turn in 1936 when Elsa played Peter Pan to Laughton's Captain Hook.

Elsa made her first film appearance in 1925 in The Scarlet Letter. She continued doing British movies throughout the remainder of the Twenties and the beginning of the Thirties. Sometimes she appeared with her husband, sometimes she worked with the likes of Laurence Olivier or H.G. Wells. By 1935, Laughton had begun appearing in American films and Elsa joined him in Hollywood. After a couple of minor roles, she landed the most iconic role of her career: the title character in 1935's Bride of Frankenstein.

During the Forties, Elsa took on all sorts of supporting roles in multiple films, playing everything from a housekeeper to an artist. She was nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar as a nativity scene painter in 1949's Come to the Stable. As the Fifties rolled on, Elsa continued to work steadily with people like Danny Kaye, Shelley Winters and Jerry Lewis. In 1957, she appeared with her husband in Agatha Christie's Witness for the Prosecution, for which they both earned Academy Award nominations and she won a Golden Globe.

Elsa's first job with Disney was as the beleaguered departing nanny, Katy Nanna, at the beginning of Mary Poppins. She would then play Mrs. MacDougall in That Darn Cat! with Dean Jones and Emily Stowecroft in Blackbeard's Ghost, with Jones and Peter Ustinov. Later she would be Mrs. Formby for two episodes of Walt Disney's Wonderful World of Color entitled "My Dog, the Thief."

For the remainder of her career, Elsa would do everything from memorable guest appearances on I Love Lucy to singing a duet with Elvis in Easy Come, Easy Go. You might see her on The Man From U.N.C.L.E. on your television set and then go to the movies and see her with Ernest Borgnine in Willard. The last thing you would have watched her in was the film Die Laughing, which also starred the voice of the Beast, Robbie Benson.

In 1983, Elsa published her autobiography, Elsa Lanchester Herself, detailing her 64 year career in entertainment and her 33 year marriage to Charles Laughton. Sadly, several months after the release of her book, Elsa would suffer a stroke followed by another one the next year. Left completely incapacitated, she would be confined to bed until her passing on December 26, 1986. She was 84.

Also on this day, in American history: Macy's Department Store