English actress Elsa Lanchester was BOTD in 1902. Born Elsa Sullivan in London to unmarried Socialist parents, she studied dance in Paris as a child with Isadora Duncan. After World War One, she began performing as a singer in cabarets, making her screen debut in the 1925 film The Scarlet Woman, scripted by Evelyn Waugh. In 1927, she co-starred with Charles Laughton in the West End play Mr Prohack, becoming a popular stage couple and marrying in 1929. She starred as Anne of Cleves opposite Laughton in the 1933 film The Private Life of Henry VIII, winning Laughton an Oscar and launching him to stardom. They moved together to Hollywood, where she appeared in 1935’s David Copperfield, before finding stardom as the titular female lead in James Whale‘s comedy-horror sequel Bride of Frankenstein. Her brief but remarkable appearance as the wide-eyed monster bride, sporting a giant streaked beehive, became instantly iconic, and remains her most well-known role. She appeared with Laughton in Rembrandt, Vessel of Wrath, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Tales of Manhattan, Forever and a Day andThe Big Clock. She also had supporting roles in the 1946 adaptation of W. Somerset Maugham‘s novel The Razor’s Edge, starring Tyrone Power; The Bishop’s Wife, with David Niven and Cary Grant; The Inspector General with Danny Kaye; and Witness for the Prosecution, starring Laughton, Power and Marlene Dietrich, earning her a second Oscar nomination. Her latter career lurched, perhaps inevitably, into high camp, with witchy roles in Bell, Book and Candle and the Disney films Mary Poppins and Blackbeard’s Ghost. As her film career dwindled, she transitioned into television, with cameo appearances in I Love Lucy, The Man From U.N.C.L.E. and The Wonderful World of Disney. She and Laughton had an open relationship, allowing him to pursue discreet affairs with men. Biographers have theorised that Lanchester may also have been a lesbian, entering into a lavender marriage with Laughton as a convenient cover for her own affairs with women. In 1960, she and Laughton purchased a house in Santa Monica next door to celebrity gay couple Christopher Isherwood and Don Bachardy, with whom they became close friends. She and Laughton remained together until his death in 1962. Perhaps understandably, they had no children, though also due to Lanchester undergoing a botched abortion in her youth, leaving her unable to become pregnant. She died in 1986, aged 84. She was portrayed by Rosalind Ayres in Bill Condon‘s 1998 film Gods and Monsters, and was lovingly satirised by Madeline Kahn in the 1974 comedy film Young Frankenstein.