In the original dust jacket. Black cloth binding with purple title on the spine.

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Fantastic rare book about a fascinating woman. She lived an extraordinary life which makes for an extremely colourful read. It’s written in an extremely warm and accessible way that makes it feel like you’re enjoying a cup of tea with her. Please view our photographs. Yes, there is a good Scarborough connection. 

Reviews: 

• Well written and gives the inside story of her marriage to Charles Laughton and the spectre of his homosexuality.Her life was very unusual with nude swimming in theThames, dance classes whilst a child in Paris and much more.Very good photos of this quirky and unusually beautiful woman adorn this work.Who could forget her role in Bride of Frankenstein? I thoroughly recommend this work.
• Elsa Lanchester’s face is incredibly unique -a combination of vamp and pixie and a sort of sly laughter. The frontispiece of the book is a photo of her when very young, in profile, showing her adorable turned up nose and her great thicket of unruly red hair. Under the picture it says: “Her hair is in the chestnut trees of London and her feet are in the mud of the Thames.” Elsa was still alive when her autobiography was published in 1983. She died in 1986 at the age of 84,over twenty five years after the death of her husband Charles Laughton. Her autobiography is delightful, funny, and fascinating. Elsa came from an astonishing Hippie-like background Her parents, both socialists, refused to legitimize their relationship with marriage because they were free spirits refusing to go by the rules. Elsa remarked that she rather liked being a bastard, it sort of gave her a delicious notoriety. The name Lanchester was her mother’s name- her father’s name was Sullivan. In a childhood drastically shortened, at thirteen she was giving dancing lessons after studying briefly with Isadora Duncan in Paris. The brief description of Duncan is rather unnerving- she liked to have her students kiss her hand before classes each day. Elsa as a young woman became known for her dancing and performed in cabarets and nightclubs, gradually moving into films. She met Charles Laughton in 1927 and the two were married in 1929. She played Anne of Cleves in “The Private Life of Henry VIII” with her husband as Henry. She played Anne as a wily wench who had a boyfriend and wanted to appear so repulsive Henry would divorce her. Her performance almost upstaged Laughton, but he got the Academy Award. Charles Laughton and Elsa, physically, at least, were an oddly matched couple, he was large and corpulent, she tiny and pixie-like. They remind me rather of Diego Rivera and his wife Frida Kahlo. Laughton was widely known as homosexual, but Elsa underwent two abortions, one fathered by Laughton. Laughton had many demons- he thought he was ugly and having brought up a strict Catholic, he agonized over being homosexual. Actually he was more likely bisexual but Elsa calls him a homosexual in her book, and she should know. Many famous people cross these pages, including Sir James Barrie who approved of Elsa as Peter Pan; Clark Gable. Shelley Winters, Alexander Korda, Merle Oberon, Tyrone Power, Judith Anderson, to name just a few. Charles had a cruel streak and could be emotionally manipulative, but Elsa stuck with him. He also continued with his male relationships throughout their married life. Nevertheless, theirs was a unique relationship underwritten by tremendous affection for each other. When Charles died of bone cancer he weighed 90 pounds. Elsa would live on for another quarter of a century. ‘
• The book starts in the late 19th century, before Elsa Lanchester was born, when her mother was being dragged off to a London Dept of Lunacy asylum. Her crime—living with Elsa’s father, refusing to marry him. That’s when the roller coaster begins. Cycling through the colorful English countryside. Starting, operating and performing at her own nightclub. Posing nude for budding artists for an extra bit of change. Singing and dancing and delighting at all the London music and dance halls. Starting a legitimate acting career. Marrying rising star, the painfully gay, Charles Laughton. Acting alongside him in moving pictures as in “real” life. Motoring with him on tour across Europe. Cruising across the Atlantic from an inhospitable New York to navigating the complexities of stardom in early Hollywood. Luckily, Elsa Lanchester is doing the driving. The world’s most iconic Bride regales us with stories, memories and opinions using her own brand of honesty that never fails to amuse—honesty as refreshing as it can be eviscerating. Whether young and aspiring, shooting silent films with HG Wells and Evelyn Waugh (who probably sired her first abortion)…OR strutting along uneasily on the arm of Laughton at a premiere…OR taking direction from James Whale on the set of BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN…OR taking on typecast roles as “ninnies and nannies”, while watching as starlets walk away with good roles they turn sour…OR spilling the most jaw dropping gossip…OR fighting to make a name for herself in a one-woman road-show titled “Herself”, all the while choosing to safely, AND begrudgingly, remain in the safety of Laughton’s shadow, it’s not so much what happened in Elsa’s larger-than-life, it’s how she tells what happened that makes this book a speechless hoot. This is a hidden gem that should, like its author,find itself in the brightest spotlight.