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Laurel and Hardy were an American-based comedy duo who became famous during the early half of the 20th century for their work in motion pictures. The members of the duo were the thin British-born-and-reared Stan Laurel and his heavier American partner from the state of Georgia, Oliver Hardy. The pair are considered among the most famous and finest double acts in cinema history. Each brought talents from his solo career to the team.The two comedians worked together briefly in 1919 on The Lucky Dog released in 1921. After a period appearing separately in several short films for the Hal Roach studio during the 1920s, they began appearing in movie shorts together in 1926, and Laurel and Hardy officially became a team in 1927. They became Hal Roach's most famous and lucrative stars. Among their most popular and successful films were the features Sons of the Desert (1933), Way Out West (1937), and Block-Heads (1938); and the shorts Big Business (1929), Helpmates (1932), and their Academy Award-winning short, The Music Box (1932).The pair left the Roach studio in 1940, then appeared in eight low-budget comedies for 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. From 1945 to 1950 they didn't appear on film and concentrated on their stage show. They made their last film, Atoll K, in France in 1950 and 1951 before retiring from the screen. In total they appeared together in 106 films. They starred in 40 short sound films, 32 short silent films and 23 feature films, in the remaining 11 films they made a guest appearance or had a cameo role.Before the pairing[edit] Stan Laurel Main article: Stan Laurel Stan Laurel (June 16, 1890 – February 23, 1965) was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston, Lancashire (now Ulverston, Cumbria), England. His father, Arthur J. "A.J." Jefferson, was a showman and had served as actor, director, playwright, manager, and all-around theatrical entrepreneur in many northern English cities.Laurel began his career in Glasgow Britannia Theatre of Varieties and Panopticon music hall, colloquially know as as the Panopticon, at the age of 16, where he crafted a comedy act largely derivative of famous music hall comedians of the day, including George Robey and Dan Leno. Over the next several years, he gradually worked his way up the ladder of supporting roles until he became the featured comedian, as well as an understudy to Charlie Chaplin, in Fred Karno's comedy company. He emigrated to America in 1912 where he decided to change his name; he worried that "Stanley Jefferson" was too long to fit onto posters. He shortened it to "Stan" and added "Laurel" at the suggestion of his vaudeville partner, Mae Dahlberg.He made his first film appearance in 1917 (Nuts in May) and continued to make more than 50 other silent films and two-reelers for a variety of producers, including Gilbert M. 'Broncho Billy' Anderson, Hal Roach Studios, and Universal.He experienced modest success as a solo comedian. Producer Hal Roach later speculated that this was due in part to the difficulty in photographing Laurel's pale blue eyes on early pre-panchromatic film stock, perhaps giving the appearance of blindness (Laurel tried to remedy this in his earliest films, by adding heavy makeup around his eyes to define them). But the basic problem seems to have been his not having an identifiable or easily marketable screen character, like that of Chaplin, Harold Lloyd or Buster Keaton.It was only when Stan began appearing in satires of popular screen dramas that audiences really took notice of him. Between 1922 and 1925 he starred in a number of films including Mud and Sand (a burlesque of Blood and Sand featuring Stan as "Rhubarb Vaselino") and Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde (with Stan playing both the genteel doctor and the manic monster). Many of these comedies had crazy visual gags and Stan's eccentric pantomime, establishing the star as an inspired "nut comic."[edit] Oliver Hardy Main article: Oliver Hardy Oliver Hardy (January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was born Norvell Hardy in Harlem, Georgia, in the United States. Then as he turned 18 he changed his first name to that of his father who had died some years previously. Henceforth calling himself 'Oliver Norvell Hardy'. He was nicknamed 'Babe'.Before Hardy started his film career as a "heavy" actor in the 1914 film Outwitting Dad he had been a movie house projectionist and manager at the Palace Theater in Milledgeville, GA. Oliver appeared solo in more than 250 silent short films. Due to a studio fire only approximately 100 of these films still exist.Hardy was a trained singer, and often enjoyed performing for those on the set as well as singing in his own movies.[edit] History[edit] "Stan" and "Ollie": Hal Roach years The first film encounter of the two comedians (as separate performers) took place in The Lucky Dog, produced in 1919 by Sun-Lite Pictures and released in 1921. Several years later, both comedians appeared in the Hal Roach production 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926). Their first "official" film together was The Second Hundred Years (June 1927), directed by Fred Guiol and supervised by Leo McCarey, who suggested that the performers be teamed permanently.Hal Roach kept them a team for the next decade, making silent shorts, talkie shorts, and feature films. While most silent-film actors saw their careers decline with the advent of sound, Laurel and Hardy made a successful transition in 1929 with the short Unaccustomed As We Are. Laurel's English accent and Hardy's Southern American accent and singing brought new dimensions to their characters. The team also proved skillful in their melding of visual and verbal humor, adding dialogue that served to enhance rather than replace their popular sight gags. Laurel and Hardy appeared for the first time in color in the The Rogue Song (1930).Laurel and Hardy's shorts, produced by Hal Roach and released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, were among the most successful in the business. Most of the shorts ran two reels (twenty minutes), although several ran three reels long, and one, Beau Hunks, was four reels long. In 1929, they appeared for the first time in a feature as one of the acts in The Hollywood Revue of 1929 and the following year they appeared as the comic relief in a lavish all-Technicolor musical feature entitled: The Rogue Song. This film marked their first appearance in color. Considered a "lost film," only a few fragments of this production have survived, along with the complete soundtrack. In 1931, Laurel and Hardy made their first feature film (in which they were the stars) Pardon Us. Following the success of this film, the duo reduced the number of shorts they made to concentrate on feature films. Future Laurel and Hardy features included Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), Fra Diavolo (or The Devil's Brother, 1933), Sons of the Desert (1933), and Babes in Toyland (1934). Laurel and Hardy made the classic short The Music Box in 1932, which won the first Academy Award for Best Short Subject, Comedy.Because the popularity of the double feature diminished the demand for short subjects, Hal Roach cancelled all of his shorts series, save for Our Gang. The final short in the Laurel and Hardy series was 1935's Thicker than Water. The duo's subsequent feature films included Bonnie Scotland (1935), The Bohemian Girl (1936), Our Relations (1936), Way Out West (1937) (which includes the famous song "Trail of the Lonesome Pine"), Swiss Miss (1938), and Block-Heads (1938).[edit] Style of comedy and notable routines This article (or section) may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help improve this article, especially its section layout, and relevant internal links. (help) This article has been tagged since May 2007.The humour of Laurel and Hardy was generally visual, but based on character development with slapstick used for emphasis. Their physical tête-à-têtes are quite complex, which is part of what sets them above other comics. Their very characters and their relationship prevent them from not only achieving their goals, but from even getting started. For example, L&H want to get in a house without disturbing the occupants. Ollie pushes Stan through an open window, but they get into a snit and Stan closes the window on Ollie. Ollie signals for him to open the front door anyway. Stan opens the door—a double door—but steps out to greet Ollie and lets the door close behind him. Ollie goes to re-open the window. Stan wanders about, finding another open window, which he climbs through. Stan opens the front door again but makes so much noise that Ollie, agitated, runs at him. Nervous, Stan ducks into the house, shutting the door. He peeks out; Ollie grabs him and pulls him, but since Stan is holding the doorknob, the door shuts behind him. Ollie desperately tries to open side A of the double-door, while Stan discovers that side B is unlocked. He goes inside, then appears at the window, from which he whistles to Ollie. Ollie sees side B door is open and goes in, shutting the door just as Stan, who was climbing out of the window, reaches the front of the house. He rings the doorbell. This alerts the butler who falls down the stairs, scaring Ollie out the door. Now they are both once again locked outside, where they get into a snit.Much of their comedy involves a process they referred to as "milking", where a simple idea is used as the basis from which to build several gags. Many of their films have extended sequences constructed around simply featuring the types of problems the pair can cause for themselves in a given situation, without following a strict or set narrative.In some cases, the comedy bordered on surreal "white magic." For example, Laurel might light his pipe by flicking his thumb upward from his clenched fist as if he held a cigarette lighter. His thumb would ignite, and he would light his pipe. Hardy, seeing this, would attempt to duplicate it. When, after many attempts he actually would achieve the same effect, he would be surprised to discover that his thumb was actually burning, and would cry in pain and hastily blow it out.A famous routine the team often performed was a bizarre kind of "tit-for-tat" fight with an opponent. In the basic scenario, the fight began when Laurel and Hardy damaged someone else's property by accident. The injured party retaliated by ruining something on Laurel's or Hardy's persons. Stan and Ollie would calmly survey the damage and find something else to vandalize, with the enemy observing quietly until it was his turn to wreck something. The action escalated until both sides were simultaneously destroying property in front of each other. An early example is L & H's silent classic, Big Business, which was placed with the Library of Congress as a national treasure in 1992.[edit] On-screen characterizations The Laurel and Hardy on-screen characters are of two supremely brainless, eternally optimistic men, almost brave in their perpetual and impregnable innocence. Their humor is physical, but their accident-prone buffoonery is distinguished by the stars' friendly, kindly personalities and their devotion to each other. Stan and Ollie are children in a grown-up world: a skinny-and-fat pair of life's innocent bystanders who always run afoul of irate landlords, pompous citizens, angry policemen, domineering women, antagonistic customers, and apoplectic bosses.Laurel and Hardy had an inbuilt physical contrariety to aid them, and they enhanced this ludicrousness with little touches, being very careful never to desert reality. Stan kept his hair short on the sides and back, but let it grow long on top to create a natural "fright wig" through his inveterate gesture of scratching his head at moments of shock or wonderment and simultaneously pulling up his hair. To achieve a flat-footed walk, he removed the heels from his shoes (usually Army shoes). When talking with Ollie, he would frequently look at his partner's forehead instead of his eyes, enhancing his out-of-this-world coloration.Inescapably, the ideogram for Laurel and Hardy is a pair of bowler hats. The quasi-British formality of this headgear is in perfect consonance with their bone-bred politeness. Whatever else they are, they are gentlemen -- "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy."Part of Laurel and Hardy's on-screen appearance called for their faces to be filmed flat, without any shadows or dramatic lighting. To recall the traditional appearance of clowns, both comedians wore a light pancake makeup on their faces, and Roach's cameramen, such as Art Lloyd and Francis Corby, were instructed to light and film a scene so that facial lines and wrinkles would be "washed out." Art Lloyd was once quoted as saying, "Well, I'll never win an Oscar, but I'll sure please Stan Laurel."Off-screen, Laurel and Hardy were the opposite of their movie characters: Laurel was the idea man, while Hardy was more easygoing. Although Hal Roach employed writers and directors such as H.M. Walker, Leo McCarey, James Parrott, James W. Horne, and others on Laurel and Hardy films, somewhere between twenty-five and ninety-five percent of each was reworked by Stan Laurel on his own. Laurel would rewrite entire sequences or scripts, have the cast and crew improvise on the soundstage, and meticulously review the footage for editing, often moonlighting to achieve all of these tasks. While Hardy also made contributions to the routines, he was content to follow Laurel's lead and spent most of his free time on hobbies such as golf.[edit] Later feature films Promotional still photo for A Chump At Oxford (1940)By 1936, although the relationship between Laurel and Hardy remained strong, Laurel's dealings with producer Roach became strained amid a tangle of artistic differences. Roach insisted that his feature-length comedies should also contain musical numbers and/or subplots. (Roach always contended that if you watched any comedian for an hour at a time, "you'd be bored to hell with him.") Laurel maintained that such padding distracted from the team's comedy. History has certainly proved Laurel right: the weakest of their films are the ones possessing the most baggage, while the best are those that unblinkingly focus on Stan and Ollie. Because of this friction, extended stand-off periods became common during the late 1930s, with Roach occasionally threatening to pair Hardy with someone else (he kept them under separate contracts).As a point of interest, Roach did terminate Stan Laurel's contract in August of 1938. The New York Times for August 18, 1938 reported: "Harry Langdon replaces Laurel as Hardy's partner...comedy series planned...Laurel placed under permanent suspension...Laurel was removed from the payroll when he declined to report for retakes for 'Blockheads' and for the subsequent Laurel and Hardy effort which was to have been started two weeks ago. Langdon will be teamed with Oliver Hardy in comedies. The first will be Zenobia's Infidelity," by H.C. Brunner..."That film, Zenobia, was, in fact, made with Hardy and Langdon, and it enjoyed some success. It turned out to be the only pairing of Hardy and Langdon. During the dispute with Roach, Stan Laurel also made other plans. The NY Times of Sept, 12, 1938, reported:"...Mack Sennett announced that he had signed Stan Laurel to star in a series of films he will make with a new producing company to be known as Sennet Pictures Corporation. Laurel was under contract to Hal Roach as member of the Laurel and Hardy comedy team, until last month, when Roach broke up the combination, alleging that Laurel violated his contract, and substituted Harry Langdon as Hardy's mate..." Those films were not made, since by April of 1939 the dispute between Laurel and Roach was settled and the comedy team was again intact for further work with Roach. They made two more films A Chump at Oxford (1940) and Saps at Sea (1940) that Roach released through United Artists.Hoping for greater artistic freedom, Laurel and Hardy split with Roach and signed with major studios 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. However, the working conditions were now completely different: they were hired only as actors, relegated to the B-film divisions, and initially not allowed to improvise or contribute to the scripts. When the films proved popular, the studios gave the team more input, and Laurel and Hardy made a total of eight features through 1944. These films, if not the team's best, were extremely successful at the box office.In 1941, Laurel and Hardy filmed a silent sequence as a public service for the Department of Agriculture; this footage was incorporated into the U. S. Government short The Tree In a Test Tube (1943). The duo demonstrated the uses of wood, especially as part of the war effort. The most remarkable thing about the film, narrated by MGM's Pete Smith, was that it was filmed in Kodachrome, only the second of their films to be shot in color. (There are also color home movies of Laurel and Hardy, some of which have been included in video releases of their Hal Roach films.)In 1949, when Laurel was temporarily unable to work because of illness, Oliver Hardy made two solo appearances with his partner's blessings. He played the comic sidekick to John Wayne in Republic's The Fighting Kentuckian. Then, Frank Capra cast him as a racetrack gambler in an uncredited appearance in Riding High, starring Bing Crosby.After spending the rest of the 1940s performing on stage in Europe, Laurel and Hardy made one final film together in 1950. Atoll K (also known as Utopia) was a French-Italian co-production directed by Leo Joannon, which was plagued by language barriers, production problems, and Stan Laurel's grave health during shooting. Although the film contained some clever visual humor, its muddled storyline and bad voice dubbing worked against its success. The film brought an end to Laurel and Hardy's film careers.[edit] Final years After Atoll K, Laurel and Hardy took several months off, so that Laurel could recuperate. Upon their return to the European stage, Laurel and Hardy undertook a successful series of public appearances in short sketches Laurel had written: "A Spot of Trouble" (in 1952) and "Birds of a Feather" (in 1953).Laurel & Hardy returned to the United States in 1954. On December 1, 1954, the team made their only American television appearance, surprised by Ralph Edwards on his live NBC-TV program, "This Is Your Life". An audible gasp went up from the studio audience when they were introduced, since — unlike Europeans — many were unaware that they were still alive and well. By the mid-1950s, partly due to the positive response from the television broadcast, the pair was negotiating again with Hal Roach for a series of NBC television specials (in color) to be called Laurel & Hardy's Fabulous Fables. However, plans for the specials were shelved, as the aging comedians suffered from declining health.In 1955, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy made their final public appearance together, taking part in a BBC television program about the Grand Order of Water Rats, the British variety organization. It was titled "This is Music Hall". Laurel & Hardy provide a filmed insert during which they reminisce about their friends in British variety. They conclude with thanks and a fond goodbye to their fans. Neither would have known this to be their farewell appearance, but there could have been none more appropriate. Hear the audio and see a still picture from the TV broadcast at http://www.laurelandhardy.org/lastTV.htmUnder doctor's orders to improve a heart condition, Hardy lost over 100 pounds in 1956. However, he suffered several strokes — some say partly due to the rapid weight loss — and died of a major stroke on August 7, 1957. Longtime friend Bob Chatterton said Hardy only weighed 138 pounds at the end. A depressed Laurel did not attend his partner's funeral, due to his own ill health, explaining his absence with the line "Babe would understand." Had Oliver Hardy lived only a short while longer, he would have seen the triumphant return of Laurel & Hardy to movie theaters, in the Robert Youngson silent-film compilation The Golden Age of Comedy.For the remaining eight years of his life, Stan Laurel refused to perform, even turning down Stanley Kramer's offer to make a cameo in his landmark 1963 movie, It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. In 1960, Laurel was given a special Academy Award for his contributions to film comedy; he was invited to appear at the ceremonies but declined; when he received the statuette, he immediately dubbed it "Mr. Clean" since he was an avid television viewer and familiar with the popular commercials for the cleaning product.Despite not appearing on-screen after Hardy's death, Laurel did contribute gags to several comedy filmmakers. Most of his writing was in the form of correspondence; he insisted on answering every fan letter personally, and his typewritten responses are highly prized souvenirs today. Late in life, he hosted many visitors of the new generation at his modest seaside apartment, including Dick Cavett, Jerry Lewis, and Dick Van Dyke. Van Dyke (who became a great friend of Laurel) did an imitation of Stan on his television show in 1963, which Laurel saw and wrote — much to Van Dyke's amusement — a lengthy set of "tips" to perfect the imitation. Laurel would live until 1965, surviving to see the duo's work rediscovered through television and classic film revivals. He died in Santa Monica, and is buried at Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills in Los Angeles, California.[edit] Posthumous revivals After Stan Laurel's death in 1965, there were two major motion-picture tributes: Laurel and Hardy's Laughing '20s, Robert Youngson's affectionate compilation of the team's silent-film highlights; and The Great Race, a large-scale salute to slapstick that director Blake Edwards dedicated to "Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy."Since the 1930s the Laurel and Hardy films have been re-released in numerous theatrical reissues, television revivals (both broadcast and cable), 16mm and 8mm home movies, feature-film compilations, and home video. When film colorization was introduced in 1983, the first film demonstrating the process was a Laurel and Hardy film.Merchandiser Larry Harmon claimed ownership of Laurel and Hardy's likenesses and issued Laurel and Hardy toys and coloring books. He also co-produced a series of Laurel and Hardy cartoons in 1966 with Hanna-Barbera Productions. His animated versions of Laurel and Hardy also guest-starred in a 1972 episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies. In 1999, Harmon produced a direct-to-video feature, the lackluster live-action comedy The All-New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy: For Love of Mummy, with actors Bronson Pinchot and Gailard Sartain impersonating Laurel and Hardy.[edit] Lost films Virtually all of the Laurel and Hardy films survive, and have never gone out of circulation permanently. Three of their 106 films are considered lost. The silent Hats Off has vanished completely. Now I'll Tell One was made in two reels, the first reel is lost and the second reel while known to exist has never been released commercially. In The Rogue Song Stan and Ollie appeared in 10 clips throughout the film, only one of these clips is known to exist.The Battle of the Century also has several minutes of lost footage.[edit] Music Main article: Laurel and Hardy music Laurel and Hardy's famous signature tune, known as "The Cuckoo Song", "Ku-Ku", or "The Waltz of the Cuckoos", was composed by Roach musical director Marvin Hatley as the on-the-hour chime for the Roach studio radio station. Laurel heard the tune on the station, and asked Hatley to use it as the Laurel and Hardy theme song. In Laurel's eyes, the song's melody represented Oliver Hardy's character (pompus and dramatic), while the harmony represented Laurel's own character (somewhat out of key, and only able to register two notes: "coo-coo"). The original theme, recorded by two clarinets in 1930, was re-recorded with a full orchestra in 1935.In the UK the song, "Trail of the Lonesome Pine" is the biggest posthumous hit by an artist not making No.1. It is also the first after-death success for a duo. The song made No.2 in the UK charts in December 1975.[edit] In Popular Culture The catchphrase most associated with Laurel and Hardy is "Well, there's another fine mess you've gotten me into." The phrase has passed into common language usage and means to blame a partner for causing both people an avoidable problem. This phrase is a misquote and Ollie actually says "Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." The phrase was first used in their 1930 film The Laurel-Hardy Murder Case and Another Fine Mess was the title of one of their short films released later that year. In a turnabout to this phrase in their 1931 film, Chickens Come Home, Ollie says impatiently to Stan, "Well...." with Stan responding, "Here's another nice mess I've gotten you into."There are two Laurel and Hardy museums, each in the comedians' respective birthplaces of Ulverston, Lancashire and Harlem, Georgia.In a 2005 poll, The Comedian's Comedian, the duo was voted the seventh greatest comedy act ever by fellow comedians and comedy insiders, making them the most popular double act on the list.In 2006, BBC Four showed a drama based on Laurel meeting Hardy on his deathbed and reminiscing about their career called Stan(Website).On 18th March 2007,it was reported in the UK newspaper the Sunday Express that British actors Robson Green (Laurel) and Mark Benton (Hardy) are to portray the comedians in a made for TV film project.Laurel and Hardy make an appearance as Roman legionaries in the Asterix comic, Obelix and Co. (Source:The complete guide to Asterix by Peter Kessler ISBN 0-340-65346-9)Josh Ritter, an American folk singer, references the comedy duo in the songs "Girl in the War" and "Thin Blue Flame" both released on the album The Animal Years.Noted American illustrator, Maurice Sendak, who grew up watching Laurel and Hardy films, has used Oliver Hardy's image at least twice. First, in triplicate, in his classic picture book, "In The Night Kitchen" and more recently in "Brundibar," written by Tony Kushner.Gilligan and the Skipper of Gilligan's Island were presumbly modeled after Laurel and Hardy. In fact, the Skipper (played by Alan Hale, Jr.) frequently hit Gilligan with his cap when Gilligan did or said something dumb. This was done occasionally by Laurel and Hardy, with Hardy hitting Laurel with his hat, in their shorts and films. Hale admitted in interviews that he also used Oliver Hardy's technique of looking directly into the camera as if to say to the viewer (as Hardy did) "do you believe what I have to put up with?" after his partner said or did something ridiculous. In fact, Hale's father had appeared as a supporting actor with Laurel and Hardy in "Our Relations".[edit] The Sons Of The Desert The official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society is known as "The Sons of the Desert", after a fraternal society in the 1933 film Sons of the Desert. It was founded in New York in 1965 by Laurel & Hardy biographer John McCabe, with the sanction of Stan Laurel. Since the group's inception well over 100 chapters of the organization have formed across North America, Europe, and Australia.