Charles Laughton was an English stage and film actor. He became an American citizen in 1950. While best known for his historical roles in films, he started his career as a remarkable stage actor. In a moment when stage actors despised movies as a legitimate medium, only being interested in them as a source of income, Laughton showed keen and serious interest in the pioneering possibilities of film, and later other new media as radio and TV, proving that it was worth that quality work could be available to larger audiences other than theatre goers.