THE LAUGHTON STORY

A biography that is a one man show, this, for all its rather undress picture of Laughton, is necessarily a professional story because of his implacable determination to master his craft. A ridiculed, self-conscious, ugly duckling, young Charles broke away from his family's anti-theater attitude, went from amateur appearances to prize boy of the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art; he refused to be typed, went from theater in London, to the stage in New York, withstood moving picture offers but finally headed for Hollywood. There, waiting for some action, he and his never to be discounted wife, Elsa Lanchester, tried to absorb American life in spite of British confusion -- and some distaste; there, too, experience began to count and eventually led to his British success in Henry VIII, the acclaim of Mutiny on the Bounty, and others. He knew failure when he tried to play Shakespeare; he found a new public when he started his readings and when the Quartette found its tremendous audience. A careful view of a hard working, painstaking artist, this should have an audiences widened by his recent ventures.