Stan Laurel
Forest Lawn Hollywood Hills
Stan Laurel, half of the most
successful comedy team in film history, was the son of an actor and theater manager
in England, and he started working on music hall stages at a teenager. He toured
the United States with Fred Karno's vaudeville troupe in 1910, along with
fellow performer Charlie Chaplin. When the Karno company returned to the
United States in 1917, Laurel remained behind and made his film debut in
"Nuts in May" (1917). Laurel appeared in dozens of silent comedy shorts over
the next few years, including starring in a parody of Rudolph Valentino's popular
bullfighter film, "Blood and Sand" (1922), titled "Mud and Sand" (1922),
in which Laurel's character is named Rhubarb Vaselino. Later that year,
Laurel starred as a man accused of dognapping in "Lucky Dog" (1922). Playing
a bit part as a masked bandit in the film was another young comedian named
Oliver Hardy. It was their first screen appearance together.
The pair didn't work together again until "Forty-Five Minutes
from Hollywood" (1926). Though Hardy and Laurel appeared in several more films
together, it wasn't until Hal Roach formally paired them as a comedy team that
the "Laurel and Hardy" characters emerged - the Mutt and Jeff pair, in suits
and bowler hats, full of dignity and self-importance, set to take on the
Though the Laurel and Hardy characters evolved slowly,
"Do Detectives Think?" (1927) is generally accepted at the first official
"Laurel and Hardy" film. The pair were masters at every form of comedy,
from broad physical humor and slapstick, to verbal sparring, to more subtle
humor. Audiences would laugh just as hard at the pair being chased down a
flight of stairs by a runaway piano as they would at Hardy's delicate "slow burn"
after yet another of Laurel's well-intentioned but misguided efforts. Few other
comedians were as successful in so many different ways. Laurel's character,
the feather-brained member of the team, would typically scratch his head, blink
his eyes and sob at the first sign of trouble, while the exasperated Hardy
would exclaim, "Well, here's another fine mess you've gotten me into!"
While Laurel seemed to be the less intelligent member of the screen
duo, off screen he was the more creative, often writing many of the team's comedy routines.
Laurel and Hardy entered into sound films without missing a beat
or losing any of their comedy genius. In fact, their verbal exchanges became
the more memorable parts of their films. The duo also progressed from two-reel
comedies to full-length features, even though they won an Academy Award in 1932
for "The Music Box," the first Oscar presented for a live-action short comedy.
"The Music Box" was the simple story of Laurel and Hardy trying to haul a piano
up a lengthy flight of stairs. The stairs are still there, virtually unchanged,
at 923 N. Vendome St., near Del Monte Drive in the Silver Lake neighborhood of
Los Angeles. The stairs are a popular spot for Laurel and Hardy fans, and a
commemorative plaque identifies the location.
Laurel and Hardy were at their creative and popular peak in the
1930s, with films like "Pardon Us" (1931), "Beau Hunks" (1931), "Towed in a Hole"
(1932), "The Devil's Brother" (1933), "Busy Bodies" (1933), "Sons of the Desert"
(1933), "Them Thar Hills" (1934), "Tit for Tat" (1935), "Way Out West" (1937),
"Swiss Miss" (1938) and "Block Heads" (1938). In the 1940s, Laurel and Hardy
continued to work, but their advancing ages necessitated a slower pace and less
physical comedy. Laurel and Hardy's last film together was "Utopia" (1950).
In 1960, three years after Hardy's death, Laurel was given an honorary Academy
Award, "for his creative pioneering in the field of cinema comedy."
"If any of you cry at my funeral," Laurel once said, "I'll never
speak to you again." The plaque above Laurel's grave identifies him as, "A master
of comedy. His genius in the art of humor brought gladness to the world he loved."
Laurel is buried with his seventh wife, Ida Kitaeva Laurel, whom he married
in 1946. She died in 1980.
Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson on June 16, 1890,
in Ulverston, England. He died on Feb. 23, 1965, in Santa Monica, CA.
1890 - 1965
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