Charles Laughton rubbing

In an email, I asked Ruby Cohn if she had seen any Brecht, and she replied that she had seen Charles Laughton playing Galileo, and in particular she remembered Laughton rubbing his chest every now on then. Eric Bentley, during my visit to him, had mentioned to me a lot of things, he told me, he hadn't said in print, one of which was that he knew Laughton in Hollywood and knew some of his personal habits. Bentley went on saying that he came to know that Laughton, whether in the corridors of a theatre or a Hollywood studio, was in the habit of walking around and rubbling his genitals. To facilitate the job for himself so that his fingers could reach easily, Laughton made a hole in his trousers pocket. One day, and Bentley was an eye-witness, Laughton was yelling and cursing because someone had sewn the hole in his trousers pocket. That someone, as Eric Bentley has just informed me in an email message, was Helene Weigel (Mrs Brecht) who was acting as costume mistress at the time