Elsa Buchanan
Elsa Buchanan (22 December 1908 – 17 January 2004) was an English character actress with a brief career in theatre and film.
Elsa Buchanan | |
|---|---|
| Born | Elsie Winifred Buchanan Tinker 22 December 1908 |
| Died | 17 January 2004 (aged 95) |
| Occupation | Actress |
| Years active | 1912–1938 |
| Spouse(s) | Noll Charlton (1938–1966) (his death) |
Born Elsie Winifred Buchanan Tinker, Buchanan made her stage debut at age three at the Palace Theatre, London at a performance attended by Queen Mary. Buchanan was later the first Briton admitted to the training school of the Académie française.
She made seventeen films in the United States, where she was noted for her blonde hair and called "the girl with the largest eyes and the smallest waist in Hollywood." She accepted the proposal of her husband, a merchant sailor named Noll Charlton, while attending a coronation ball for King George VI and retired from film thereafter.
Shortly before her death, she saw Gosford Park, in which one of the characters, a Hollywood producer, discusses casting for Charlie Chan in London, inviting a blonde maid to audition for the part that she actually played in that film.
Filmography
- Riptide (1934)
- Charlie Chan in London (1934)
- The Little Minister (1934)
- The Mystery of Edwin Drood (1935)
- Here's to Romance (1935)
- Peter Ibbetson (1935)
- I Found Stella Parish (1935)
- Sylvia Scarlett (1935)
- Little Lord Fauntleroy (1936)
- Love on the Run (1936)
- Lloyd's of London (1936)
- Ready, Willing and Able (1937)
- Call It a Day (1937)
- Song of the Forge (1937)
- The Thirteenth Chair (1937)
- The Dark Stairway (1938)
- Invisible Enemy (1938)