Before the pairing
[edit]
Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel (June 16, 1890 February 23, 1965) was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in Ulverston, Lancashire (now Ulverston, Cumbria), England. Laurel began his career as a comedian in English music halls where he was an understudy to Charlie Chaplin in Fred Karno's comedy company. He emigrated to America in 1910 and embarked on a vaudeville career. He made his first film appearance in 1917 (Nuts in May). He stayed in film and did minor and undistinguished work for Hal Roach, Anderson and Universal.Before his partnership with Hardy, Laurel appeared solo in more than 50 silent one- and two-reelers. He had to use eyeliner, as his pale blue eyes wouldn't photograph well on the black and white film at the time. Laurel also removed the heels from his shoes to give himself a "foolish" walk.[edit]
Oliver Hardy
Oliver Hardy (January 18, 1892 August 7, 1957) was born Norvell Hardy in Harlem, Georgia near Augusta, Georgia, in the United States of America. As he turned 18, he changed his first name to that of his father, thenceforth calling himself 'Oliver Norvell Hardy'. He was nicknamed 'Babe'.Before Hardy started his film career as a "heavy" actor in 1914 (Outwitting Dad), he had been a movie house projectionist/manager at the Palace Theater in Milledgeville, GA. Before his partnership with Stan, Oliver appeared solo in more than 250 silent one- and two-reelers, only about 100 of which are extant.Hardy was a trained singer, and often enjoyed performing for those on the set as well as singing in his own movies.[edit]
"Stan" and "Ollie": Hal Roach years
The first film encounter of the two comedians (as separate performers) took place in The Lucky Dog (1921), followed by another Hal Roach production, Forty-Five 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 originally suggested that Laurel and Hardy be a permanent team.From 1926 onwards, the pair starred in Hal Roach comedies, including 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's shorts, produced by Hal Roach and released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, were among the most successful in the business. Most of them ran two reels (twenty minutes), although several were three reels long, and one, Beau Hunks, was four. In 1931, the duo made their first feature, Pardon Us. They then reduced the number of shorts to concentrate on longer films, such as Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), Fra Diavolo (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 of the competition from the double feature and block booking, Hal Roach cancelled all of his short subject 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 "On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine"), Swiss Miss (1938), and Blockheads (1938).[edit]
Style of comedy and notable routines
The humor of Laurel and Hardy was generally slapstick in nature, often employing Laurel's character as dominant (although Hardy always presumed he had the upper hand), usually to his partner's chagrin. A typical sequence would be their collaboration on the construction of a house: Hardy holds a number of nails in his mouth, Laurel warmly claps him on the back, Hardy swallows the nails. 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 the surreal. For example, Laurel might light his pipe by flicking his thumb upwards 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 shtick the team often performed was a bizarre kind of "tit-for-tat" fight with an opponent. In the basic scenario, the pair would begin the fight by damaging something that the opponent valued, while that opponent did not defend himself. However, when the pair were finished, the opponent would then calmly retaliate by damaging something that Laurel and Hardy valued, while the pair strangely refrained from defending themselves. The pair then dispassionately retaliated with an escalating act of vandalism and so on, until both sides were simultaneously destroying property in front of each other.[edit]
On-screen characterizations
The Laurel and Hardy on-screen characters are two more-or-less dimwitted men recognizable by their trademark derby hats. Their humor is physical, but their accident-prone buffoonery is distinguished by the stars' friendly, kindly personalities and their devotion to each other. Laurel and Hardy's characters are grown-up children: 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.Off-screen, Laurel and Hardy were the opposite of their movie characters: Laurel was the driven, ambitious leader, while Hardy was more easygoing. Although Hal Roach employed writers and directors such as H.M. Walker, Leo McCarey, Frank Capra, 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. He would rewrite entire sequences or scripts, have the cast and crew improvise on the soundstage, and meticulously reviewed film dailies, often moonlighting to achieve all of these tasks. While Hardy also made contributions to the routines, he preferred to follow Laurel's lead and spent most of his free time on hobbies such as golf.[edit]
Decline
By 1936, the relationship between Laurel and Hardy was under strain, and both were distanced from Hal Roach. Laurel, in particular, frequently argued with the producer, and extended stand-off periods became common during the late 1930s. In 1938, The Roach studio switched distributors from MGM to United Artists. Laurel and Hardy made two more films for Roach before they split with the studio in 1940.Hoping for greater artistic freedom, Laurel and Hardy signed with the larger studios 20th Century Fox and MGM. However, the pair were now relegated to the b-film divisions, where they made eight more films through 1944. These features, on which the duo were not allowed to improvise or provide much input, were not critically successful, and were not fondly remembered by the comedians themselves.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 Léo Joannon, which suffered language barriers, production problems, and Stan Laurel's grave health during shooting. The film was a commercial and critical disappointment, and 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 a short sketch Laurel had written called "Birds of a Feather". By the mid-1950s, the pair were negotiating again with Hal Roach for a series of television specials to be called Laurel & Hardy's Fabulous Fables. However, the plans for the specials were shelved, as the aging comedians suffered from declining health.Under a doctor's advice, Hardy lost over one-hundred pounds in 1956. However, Hardy suffered several strokes, and died of a major stroke on August 7, 1957. 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."For the remaining eight years of his life, 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. Despite not appearing on-screen after Hardy's death, Laurel did contribute scripts and gags to several comedy filmmakers, and did some personal writing as well. 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]
Afterwards
A few months after Laurel's death, the inaugural meeting of The Sons of the Desert, the official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society, was held in New York City. Since that time, chapters of the organization have formed across North America and Europe, as well as in Australia.Larry Harmon became the owner of Laurel and Hardy's likenesses in the mid-1960s, and co-produced a series of animated Laurel and Hardy cartoons in 1966 with Hanna-Barbera Productions. The animated versions of Laurel and Hardy also guest-starred in a 1972 episode of Hanna-Barbera's The New Scooby-Doo Movies. Harmon voiced Laurel in the 1966 series, with Jim MacGeorge voicing Hardy; for the 1972 appearance on Scooby-Doo, Harmon did both voices.In 1999, Larry Harmon produced a direct-to-video film, The All-New Adventures of Laurel and Hardy: For Love of Mummy, based upon the films of Laurel and Hardy. The film dealt with Laurel and Hardy's identical nephews falling into some of the same messes that their legendary uncles fell into. Actors Bronson Pinchot and Gailard Sartain took over the respective roles for this one film. Laurel and Hardy films have appeared frequently in television syndication and on cable television networks such as American Movie Classics, Turner Classic Movies, The Family Channel, and the Hallmark Channel. Many of the films are also available on home video and DVD.
