- In March 1983, Lanchester released an autobiography, entitled Elsa Lanchester Herself. In the book she alleges that she and Charles Laughton never had children because he was homosexual. Maureen O'Hara, a friend and co-star of Laughton, denied this was the reason for the couple's childlessness. She claimed Laughton had told her that the reason he and his wife never had children was because of a botched abortion Lanchester had early in her career of performing burlesque. She herself admitted in her autobiography that she had had two abortions in her youth but it is unclear if the second left her incapable of becoming pregnant again. According to her biographer, Charles Higham, the reason she did not have children was that neither she or her husband wanted any.
- As an 11-year-old she studied dance under Isadora Duncan and later taught dancing to neighborhood children and schoolmates.
- Met future husband Charles Laughton while acting in the play "Mr. Prohack" in 1927.
- Appeared in seven Oscar Best Picture nominees: The Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), David Copperfield (1935), Naughty Marietta (1935), The Razor's Edge (1946), The Bishop's Wife (1947), Witness for the Prosecution (1957) and Mary Poppins (1964).
- Sharp-tongued Hollywood commentator, who was denied top billing for Bride of Frankenstein (1935), even though she played the title role. This is the role for which she was likely best remembered by the public.
- Upon her death, she was cremated and her ashes scattered at sea.
- She was a naturalized United States citizen.
- She has appeared in three films that have been selected for the National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically" significant: Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Lassie Come Home (1943) and Mary Poppins (1964).
- Daughter of James Sullivan (1871-1945), born in Battersea, London, and Edith Lanchester (1871-1966), born in Hove, Sussex. Sister of Waldo Lanchester. Maternal granddaughter of Henry (1834-1914) and Octavia (née Ward) Lanchester (1834-1916); both born and raised in London.
- She, like her parents, was a lifelong liberal Democratic socialist.
- During the 2018 Halloween season, an image of Elsa dressed in her famed Bride of Frankenstein costume had been featured on the front cover of a set of individual Halloween cards that were sold exclusively at Target stores throughout the United States.
- Biography in: "The Scribner Encyclopedia of American Lives". Volume Two, 1986-1990, pages 505-506. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1999.
- Biography in "Actresses of a Certain Character: Forty Familiar Hollywood Faces from the Thirties to the Fifties" by Axel Nissen.
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