The famous stage and film villain 'a one-man rogue's gallery', was born Norman Carter Slaughter in Newcastle. He made his first appearance in West Hartlepool in 1905 and thereafter achieved great success in powerful revived Victorian melodramas, like Sweeney Todd the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. His over-the-top style was a form of 'camp; before the word had attained its modern meaning.
Slaughter saved many a film with his presence, and starred in Maria Martin, or the Murder in the Red Barn (1935), Sweeney Todd (1936) and The Ticket-of-Leave Man (1938). This latter was based on the play by Sunderland-born Tom Taylor (q.v.). The vogue for melodrama had passed by the end of WWII and though he made one or two TV appearances, Slaughter went bankrupt in 1953