A 1998 L.A. Weekly article about streets named after movie stars stated that Laughton Way, laid out in 1979, honors British thespian Charles Laughton (1899-1962), star of The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Witness for the Prosecution, etc. and director of the cult classic The Night of the Hunter. Why him? Because, according to the article, “the cartographer needed to name a vacant street” and so “Laughton was chosen out of thin air”. My instinct here is to be skeptical – and yet the story is so specific that it makes me ask, Why would anyone make this up? The Weekly article was right about other actorly avenues (Cagney Street, Rochester Circle, Edward Everett Horton Lane) but also incorrectly claimed that Marbro Drive is for the Marx Brothers, so it wasn’t infallible. Fact is, I found no other Laughtons who would have been a likelier inspiration. There was a building contractor named Bruce Norman Laughton (1917-2013) but I couldn’t connect him to Porter Ranch.
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