There is no such thing as a person that nothing has happened to, and each person's story is as different as his fingertips.

She continued television work into the early 1970s appearing as a recurring character in Nanny and the Professor starring Richard Long and Juliet Mills. She and Laughton returned to Britain in 1936 to appear together again in Rembrandt and two years later in Vessel of Wrath a. In the 1965–66 television season Elsa Lanchester was a regular on John Forsythe's sitcom The John Forsythe Show on NBC in the role of Miss Culver the principal of a private girls' academy in San Francisco.

Following Laughton's death in 1962 Lanchester resumed her career with appearances in such Disney films as Mary Poppins (1964) That Darn Cat! (1965) and Blackbeard's Ghost (1968). She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Come to the Stable (1949) and Witness for the Prosecution (1957) the last of twelve films in which Elsa Lanchester appeared with Laughton. She played supporting roles through the 1940s and 1950s.