Charles Laughton
“Salka Viertel, at whose house in Maybery Road they met, writes that Laughton was ‘hypnotised’ by Brecht. Conversely, James K. Lyon in his definitive Bertolt Brecht in America describes Laughton as ‘the single most important person for Brecht in his American exile’.
Certainly they fell on each other with the passion of two people who want something only the other can give, something desperately desired and long lacked: in Brecht’s case, a production, in Laughton’s, a rôle. Brecht, at this point ...in his exile, would have collaborated with any star he thought he could hitch a production to (he had been speaking to Luise Rainer, star of The Good Earth, about putting on The Caucasian Chalk Circle – had indeed written it on the basis of her enthusiasm to play in Klabund’s original Chalk Circle) whilst Laughton was pining like some great animal denied proper exercise.
What began as mutual self-interest, however, quickly turned into something infinitely rich and rewarding, both personally and creatively, if not, in the last analysis, professionally.MoreLess
Certainly they fell on each other with the passion of two people who want something only the other can give, something desperately desired and long lacked: in Brecht’s case, a production, in Laughton’s, a rôle. Brecht, at this point ...in his exile, would have collaborated with any star he thought he could hitch a production to (he had been speaking to Luise Rainer, star of The Good Earth, about putting on The Caucasian Chalk Circle – had indeed written it on the basis of her enthusiasm to play in Klabund’s original Chalk Circle) whilst Laughton was pining like some great animal denied proper exercise.
What began as mutual self-interest, however, quickly turned into something infinitely rich and rewarding, both personally and creatively, if not, in the last analysis, professionally.MoreLess
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