Charles Laughton

Charles Laughton was a British-American actor of enormous range and presence, known for The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933, Academy Award for Best Actor), The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1939), Witness for the Prosecution (1957), and his sole directorial effort The Night of the Hunter (1955). He was gay in an era when it was a criminal offense in Britain and a social impossibility in Hollywood; he married actress Elsa Lanchester in 1929, and the arrangement was one of mutual tolerance — Lanchester later acknowledged knowing he was gay. His homosexuality was extensively documented after his death, and he is now recognized as one of the great closeted gay artists of Hollywood's golden age.