by Hal Erickson
biography
Emaciated British character actor Gibb McLaughlin spent years as a music hall monologist, telling morbid jokes about his many imagined illnesses. McLaughlin also performed a "protean act," playing all the roles with rapid costume changes. Making his film debut in 1921, the prune-visaged McLaughlin showed up in comic supporting roles for the next 36 years. Gibb McLaughlin's larger screen assignments included such roles as the Duke of York in Nell Gwynne (1926), the pretentious French executioner in Private Life of Henry VIII (1933), and sour-pussed Sowerberry the undertaker in Oliver Twist (1948).
