Elsa Lanchester, Herself

by Elsa Lanchester

Book Overview

Being known as "The Bride of Frankenstein" is an unusual form of fame, but for Elsa Lanchester the unusual came naturally. Born to radical socialist parents, Elsa attended an all-boys school and later... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312243766
• ISBN13: 9780312243760
• Release Date: January 1983
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 327 Pages
• Weight: 1.49 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Tedious - no connection to the reader

I was looking forward to this book. What a huge disappointment. It is tedious and boring. Elsa makes no connection to the reader. I plowed through her autobiography hoping it would get better, hoping I would care about her. Neither thing happened. I was very interested in her statements in chapter 26 about a possible divorce. She was falsely accused of telling their attorney, Loyd Wright, that fact that Laughton was gay. Laughton was furious and went into what she called “a frenzy of anti-Elsa-ism.” Elsa then said, “I was not only upset, I was frightened……Then they called me on the phone and Charles said, without an apology, “No divorce.” Why was she “frightened?” This was long into their marriage and long, long after her iconic appearance as the Braide of Frankenstein and subsequent successful career on screen and stage. Did this woman stay with Laughton because she felt without him her “market value” as an actress was less? Not a nice picture. Not a nice picture of either of them.

What a brave beard

Today most people know actor Charles Laughton was a gay man. But even Elsa his long term wife didn't know at first. But more then an expose on an that actor, we meet the other actor in the family, Elsa. Forever known as Frankenstein's bride, this woman had a wild wild life. As a child her parent were open communists who lived like hippies. She grew into a beautiful women who hung around some pretty awesome names in history. If you want to read about a strong-willed dynamic woman, pick this up.