Laurel and Hardy

Laurel and Hardy : Academy Award Winners!

After their 1927 debut as “Laurel and Hardy,” Stan and Ollie continued filming dozens of shorts including 1929s Double Whoopee with rising sex symbol Jean Harlow. However, their first actual “Laurel and Hardy” feature film Pardon Us would not come out until 1931.

A year later the comedy duo filmed The Music Box and won the first-ever Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film. The movie has one of Laurel and Hardy’s most memorable scenes where the bumbling actors try to deliver a piano up a flight of outdoor stairs, only to have the owner smash it with a sledge hammer once it had safely arrived.

They will go on to become America’s most beloved comedy team of all time and spend the rest of their lives as best friends, both onscreen and off.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were picked by The Beatles to be one of 71 personalities on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart Club Band album.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy were picked by The Beatles to be one of 71 personalities on the cover of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart Club Band album.

The Beatles & Laurel and Hardy

In 1967 The Beatles released what many critics would say is their most creative album cover ever: “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.”

As the cover design for the album was being discussed, the band members decided to add likenesses of people they’d come to admire.

“To help us get into the character of Sgt. Pepper’s band, we started to think about who our heroes might be,” Paul McCartney is quoted as saying. “It got to be anyone we liked.”

Before long, the cover had 71 different mostly famous people (and a few who weren’t). Among some of the notables were Albert Einstein, Karl Marx, Shirley Temple, Marlon Brando, and even heavyweight boxer Sonny Liston.

Stan and Ollie made the list. They are in the upper right above the red-costumed George Harrison. Stan is wearing his bowler, while Ollie is one space over to the right wearing a yellow hat.

The album would rank #1 on U.S. charts for an amazing 15 weeks, and even longer in the UK where is stayed at the top for 27 weeks!

And yes…Ollie does look a bit like Fatty Arbuckle in the pic…

The DUI Bust That Made National Headlines

Oliver Hardy in 1931's "Pardon Us."
Oliver Hardy in 1931’s “Pardon Us.”

In some of their films, the boys often ended up in the “hoosegow.” It also happened once in real life, but it wasn’t Ollie who spent a night behind bars.

On September 28, 1938, Stan Laurel got into an altercation with his third wife, Vera Illiana Shuvalova. A Russian immigrant and wannabe-actress, Shuvalova was 20 years younger than her husband and known to be a heavy drinker and having a terrible temper.

The pair had been drinking and quarreling and Stan ended up getting whacked with a frying pan, leaving him bruised and bleeding. After leaving his home, he was pulled over and arrested on a drunk-driving charge. He was shirtless, driving on the wrong side of the road, and came close to crashing into a police cruiser.

As a result, he spent the night in jail and paid $150 bail before his release.

Stan’s contract with Roach Studios was terminated shortly thereafter and the comic later divorced his Russian wife.

He withdrew from the public for awhile and built a towering wall around his house, posting a sign that read: “All attacking blondes will be repelled on sight.”

Producer Hal Roach and Laurel eventually settled their differences, and Stan returned to Roach Studios.

He stayed sober in public after this, repaired his career, and went on to remarry his second wife.

Sex symbol Jean Harlow had a racy scene with Laurel and Hardy in 1929's "Double Whoopee."
Sex symbol Jean Harlow had a racy scene with Laurel and Hardy in 1929’s “Double Whoopee.”

Did Sex Symbol Jean Harlow Break Oliver Hardy’s Heart?

Yes… well, sort of…

The photo above is from a Laurel and Hardy silent short filmed in 1929 called Double Whoopee.

Rising actress and sex symbol Jean Harlow had a small part in the movie. Perhaps you remember the scene where Stan and Ollie help Harlow, dressed in an evening gown, out of a taxi. Stan accidentally closes the door on the hem of her gown, and as the taxi drives away the bottom half of her gown goes with it.

Her racy scene in Double Whoopee was a fan favorite and helped to launch Harlow’s brief but spectacular career.

Jean Harlow was Oliver Hardy's ex-girlfriend in the 1931 Laurel and Hardy movie "Beau Hunks."
Jean Harlow was Oliver Hardy’s ex-girlfriend in the 1931 Laurel and Hardy movie “Beau Hunks.”

However, Harlow played brokenhearted Hardy’s estranged girlfriend in the 1931 talkie Beau Hunks, but we only see her photo the bitter Ollie is holding in his hand, and it’s the reason he and Stan have decided to join the French Foreign Legion.

Of all the Laurel and Hardy films, Hal Roach once said this was his favorite movie of all, largely because Harlow, once under contract to Roach, but now signed with RKO, appeared uncredited in the movie, and wasn’t paid for the use of her actual publicity photo.

If they hadn't been so superstitious, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel may have been known by different names.
If they hadn’t been so superstitious, Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel may have been known by different names.

The Superstitions That Made Them Change Their Names

They could easily have been “Norvell and Arthur.”

Norvell Hardy was born in 1892 in the small town of Harlem, Georgia. His father was named Oliver, had been a Confederate soldier during the Civil War, and was wounded in the Battle of Antietam in 1862.

Early in his career, Hardy was often billed as “Babe” Hardy, or sometimes by his real name Norvell. Around 1910, Hardy had a chance encounter with a numerologist who told him a name change would bring him success. His father having recently passed away, the aspiring performer decided to use his father’s name and thereafter was known as Oliver Norvell Hardy.

Stan Laurel was born in Ulverston, England in 1890, and his birth name was Arthur Stanley Jefferson. He began doing local comedy and used the stage name “Stan Jefferson.” Stan eventually made his way to America and started getting some small parts in silent movies. He met and began a common-law marriage with an Australian actress named Mae Dahlberg in 1919, a relationship that would last for nearly five years.

During their time together, the very superstitious Mae convinced him that his real name, Stan Jefferson, contained 13 letters which she warned was unlucky. It so happened she was reading a book at the time and saw a picture of a Roman emperor wearing a laurel on his head. Wham! Mae apparently saw this as a sign of success, and convinced Stan to drop the Jefferson surname and replace it with “Laurel.”

He followed her advice, and while the relationship ended a few years later, his new name stayed. He was known after that as Stan Laurel.

And Mae’s prediction about success would soon come true: the newly-named Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy soon crossed paths, eventually joined forces, and became the most successful and beloved comedy team of all time: Laurel and Hardy.

Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy both loved to golf, but Ollie loved it with a passion and was considered one of Hollywood's best golfers.
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy both loved to golf, but Ollie loved it with a passion and was considered one of Hollywood’s best golfers.

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