Laurel and Hardy were a comedy duo who rose to fame during the Classical Hollywood era.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's slapstick comedy dominated the 1930s, as they appeared in 107
films, had millions of fans, and even earned an Academy Award.
But behind the act were failed marriages, health problems, and financial ruin.
Norvell Hardy was born in Georgia in 1892.
His father, Oliver Hardy, died just a few months after his birth.
His mother supported the family by managing hotels and boarding houses.
Sometime in his teenage years, Hardy began using the name Oliver in honor of his father.
That wasn't the only loss Hardy suffered during his childhood.
When he was 17 years old, his older brother Sam visited home, and the brothers decided
to go swimming at an old mill dam on the Oconee River.
Sam, showing off for his kid brother, climbed a tree and dived into the river from an overhanging
branch.
Tragically, he misjudged the depth of the water and broke his neck on the rocks below
the surface.
Oliver Hardy and his friends dived into the river and pulled Sam out.
They carried him back to the hotel their mother ran, but it was too late: Sam was dead.
Decades later, when Hardy appeared on the television program "This Is Your Life," he
became very emotional when the subject was brought up, showing how much of a mark the
loss left on the young boy.
Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson in 1890 in England.
While Laurel had a relatively happy family life, he was alone a lot as a child.
His parents were performers and theater managers, and they frequently traveled.
They took their children with them - except Stan, who was weak and sickly as a child.
Laurel wound up spending much of his childhood with his grandparents, George and Sarah Metcalfe.
The Metcalfes were generally kind to Laurel, but they were very strict, and he spent much
of his time alone in a shack on their property being punished for one thing or another.
Still, Laurel grew into a performer just like his parents, and he quickly began writing
his own plays and pursued theater.
While this initially disappointed his parents, who hoped Laurel would come work with them,
they supported his dreams.
"Come out of there!"
"And put that pipe out!"
Then, when Stan Laurel was just 18 years old, tragedy struck when his mother, Madge, died
unexpectedly.
It's suspected she suffered from a respiratory illness made worse by the air quality in Glasgow,
where the family had relocated.
Laurel, who had discovered his father was cheating on Madge some years before, blamed
his father for breaking his mother's will to live.
According to Laurel's second wife, Virginia Ruth Rogers, he was devastated by the loss
of his mother, and in some ways, never recovered from it.
Part of the magic that was Laurel and Hardy as a comedy act was their physical disparity.
Stan Laurel's weepy, rail-thin figure next to Oliver Hardy's robust frame was inherently
charming to audiences.
Hardy's weight was part of his identity, and also the cause of his health problems later
in life.
Hardy's weight also caused him grief in his younger days.
Throughout his childhood, Hardy was known as "Fatty" Hardy.
Even after he became a famous Hollywood star, locals in his hometown in Georgia referred
to him by the cruel nickname.
His mother, who managed local boarding houses, made things even worse when she made young
Hardy walk around town wearing a sandwich board advertising the food at her hotels.
Hardy's size continued to plague him as he got older.
When America entered World War I, Oliver Hardy sought to do his patriotic duty and went to
a local enlistment office to join the army.
However, the officers took one look at Hardy's size and began to make fun of him, calling
other recruiters over to look at him.
He left humiliated.
Laurel and Hardy, the iconic comedy duo, wouldn't exist without Hollywood producer Hal Roach.
Both Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel were working actors during the 1920s, but neither had achieved
any sort of breakout success.
Roach saw their potential and put them together in 1927's The Second Hundred Years.
From that point on, the pair rose to stardom under Roach's guidance - but Roach was a sharp
businessman, and Laurel and Hardy were not.
Roach managed to keep the upper hand through shrewd negotiating.
For example, he staggered the expiration dates of their contracts so they could never negotiate
as a team, which allowed Roach to consistently undervalue them.
He paid them a flat wage instead of a percentage of the profits.
Roach also ensured that they never held any of the copyrights, or got any screenwriting
credits, although they usually took a very active role in the writing and directing of
their films.
As both men went through several divorces, alimony payments piled up, and Oliver Hardy
developed a gambling problem.
By the 1950s, Laurel and Hardy had to embark on a live tour of English music halls to try
to pay some bills - which failed when Hardy took ill and the tour had to be canceled.
Oliver Hardy died surprisingly broke, and New Statesman reveals that in 1946, Stan Laurel
was forced to admit he only had $2,000 in his bank account and $200 a month to live
on.
For about 14 years, Laurel and Hardy were one of the most popular comedy duos in Hollywood.
They often took an active role in shaping the films they worked on, writing and introducing
physical gags.
The comedy duo usually improvised much of their bits, and carefully planned and even
directed scenes while working with producer Hal Roach.
But over time, Laurel and Hardy grew to despise Roach for his tough negotiating methods and
hard-charging business style.
Thus, when they finally had the chance to break away from him, they leaped at it, signing
new deals with 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn Mayer in 1941.
However, their new deal was not what it was all cracked up to be.
Because with Roach, Laurel and Hardy had enjoyed a great deal of creative control.
When they moved to MGM in the 1940s, they were disappointed to find they'd lost that,
and they were treated as hired actors, with no input on the scripts or direction.
As a result, their output in the 1940s is considered to be of lower quality, and their
stars began to fade.
The duo made only one film together after 1945, and by 1953, they were broke and out
of the film business entirely.
Oliver Hardy married his first wife Madelyn in 1913 when he was just 21 years old.
The couple eloped to Macon, Georgia for the nuptials, claiming that since they were both
a part of touring troupes of actors and musicians, they couldn't wait until they were both home
to hold a ceremony.
The Hardy family reported that Hardy's mother was enraged at the union because Madelyn was
older than her son.
But as author Simon Louvish writes, the reason for the Hardy family's opposition to the marriage
was likely much worse: Madelyn was Jewish.
Hardy married her far away from his family to avoid an ugly scene, and the couple left
Georgia almost immediately.
The marriage lasted six years, and Hardy would describe it as a, quote, "sham" in his divorce
application.
He married Myrtle Reeves shortly after the divorce was granted, but once again marital
bliss was denied him.
As Louvish notes, Reeves was an alcoholic who was forced to stay in a sanitarium several
times as she struggled with her disease, leaving Hardy desperate to leave the marriage.
He finally found contentment after divorcing Reeves in 1940.
He married Virginia Lucille Jones, who remained by his side until his death in 1957.
Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel were unique Hollywood comedians in many ways.
One of the most surprising was the fact that they were very close friends in real life.
They enjoyed a very healthy and balanced professional relationship, wherein Hardy trusted Laurel
to shape the material in their films and went along with his ideas.
This mutual respect extended to their career dealings as well.
When Laurel and Hardy finally got out from under Hal Roach's control in the early 1940s,
neither considered working alone.
When Hardy died in 1957, Stan Laurel was crushed.
He chose to retire from show business rather than work without his friend of more than
30 years.
The final phase of Laurel and Hardy's film career was a lengthy decline.
When they switched film studios in the 1940s and lost creative control over their work,
the quality of their films declined, and public tastes shifted, leaving them less popular
than they'd once been.
They were virtually retired by 1945.
"It's because it's comedy - is difficult to make, you see."
"And difficult to do?"
"Ah, you said it."
After World War II ended, Laurel and Hardy's celebrity, which had been on the steady decline
throughout the 1940s, suddenly took off internationally as their films were finally widely distributed.
So it was decided that there was potential to relaunch their film careers with a French-Italian
co-production that eventually became known as Atoll K.
The production was a fiasco.
There were language barriers and a terrible script to contend with - but the truly tragic
aspect was Laurel and Hardy's health.
Hardy was at his heaviest, and suffered from heart problems as well as a serious bout of
the flu, while Laurel was dealing with diabetes and a prostate condition.
Furthermore, both men were considered heavy smokers in an era when smoking was common
and accepted, which didn't help their conditions.
In a final humiliation, the producers found it impossible to get the film into theaters.
In the end, the final film of Laurel and Hardy was a sad end to their brilliant careers.
"It was fun while it lasted, wasn't it Stan?"
Oliver Hardy's weight caused him many health concerns over the course of his life, and
by the 1950s he finally decided to do something about it.
So he embarked on a crash diet that led to a weight loss of 150 pounds.
Hardy expected people to be supportive, but as author Simon Louvish says, the change in
his appearance was so drastic that friends and family were visibly upset at the sight
of him.
This bothered Hardy terribly, and he went into near-seclusion, seeing only a short list
of trusted friends - including Stan Laurel.
Then, in September 1956, Oliver Hardy suffered a massive stroke that left him paralyzed and
mute.
He was unable to concentrate on anything or communicate effectively with the people around
him.
When he became especially agitated or depressed, his wife would invite Stan to visit.
He lingered on for almost a year, being diagnosed with cancer and suffering an additional two
strokes, before dying in August 1957.
By the 1950s, Stan Laurel had been struggling with his own health.
Laurel had chronic problems with his prostate, and had to have an ulcer surgically removed
from his prostate.
He was also a diabetic, which complicated his health.
Laurel had a stroke in 1955 - which he survived, but it left him weak.
When Oliver Hardy died in 1957, Laurel quietly retired and moved into a small apartment in
Santa Monica with his wife, Ida.
He spent his final years as a lonely man who passed his time writing letters - possibly
thousands of them.
Laurel spent hours every day corresponding with anyone he could, faithfully answering
fan letters and sending missives off to his acquaintances.
Some of these letters reveal tragic facts, as when he writes that after his stroke, quote,
"of course I shall never be in a condition to work any more."
Even more tragic was the fact that Stan Laurel penned something other than letters during
his final years.
He also wrote comedy routines designed for Laurel and Hardy - routines that would never
be performed.
As New Statesman notes, it was almost as if it was Laurel's way of staying in touch with
Hardy.
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