Charles Laughton
15 Percy Street · the Oscar-winning actor who directed Night of the Hunter
Charles Laughton was a character actor of huge range – an Oscar for The Private Life of Henry VIII, a terrifying Captain Bligh, and, as director, the haunting masterpiece The Night of the Hunter. He was married to Elsa Lanchester and was also a gay man, in an age that forced that life into the shadows.
He lived at 15 Percy Street in Fitzrovia in the early 1930s. English Heritage’s blue plaque is on the house.