Charles Laughton: 15 Percy Street, Fitzrovia, London W1

Charles Laughton; one of my favourite actors of the thirties and forties. Every time I pass his plaque on Percy Street (spitting distance from Coventry Patmore) I smile, for I can't help but imagine his unforgettable Quasimodo hanging from the window, laughing gleefully at passers by.

In fact, Laughton shared this flat with wife Elsa Lanchester immediately before they emigrated for America and the golden hills of Hollywood. Lanchester was a striking woman. She played the bride in the 1935 classic Bride Of Frankenstein, a character which was clearly an influence on Daryl Hannah's 'Pris' in later neo noir Bladerunner.

Laughton and Lanchester were presumably a little down at heel when they were slumming it in seedy Fitzrovia in the thirties. She later claimed that Laughton was gay, and that once she threw him out of the Percy Street flat when she caught him with one of the area's many rent boys.

Laughton's performances were almost always memorable. During the thirties and forties he starred in some of the most imaginative and powerful films being made anywhere. The Island Of Lost Souls, Mutiny On The Bounty, The Hunchback Of Notre Dame, The Private Life Of Henry VIII and the excellent noir The Big Clock are just a few that come immediately to mind.

Later, he made a brief foray into directing, and the chilling Night Of The Hunter starring Robert Mitchum is a fascinating testament to what else he could have achieved should he have so wished.

Seek out some of these movies if you haven't seen them. A Hollywood film from the thirties, when the cost of extras and set-builders was cheap enough to build, say, medieval Paris on a studio backlot, complete with cathedral and a cast of thousands, is quite a site to behold.