Elsa Lanchester - Private Life

Private Life

In March 1983, Lanchester released her autobiography, entitled Elsa Lanchester Herself. In the book she alleges that she and Charles Laughton never had children because Laughton was homosexual. Maureen O'Hara, a friend and co-star of Laughton, denied this was the reason for the couple's childlessness. She claimed Laughton had told her that the reason he and his wife never had children was because of a botched abortion Lanchester had early in her career while performing burlesque. Lanchester admitted in her autobiography that she had had two abortions in her youth (one of whom was sired by Laughton), but it is not clear if these left her incapable of becoming pregnant again. The two women did not like each other. Lanchester once said of O'Hara, "She looks as though butter wouldn't melt in her mouth, or anywhere else."

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