Stan Laurel

Stan Laurel was a British-born actor, writer, and director who helped revolutionize comedy on film during the silent era and beyond, alongside his beloved comedic partner, Oliver Hardy. Together, they made up perhaps the most iconic comedy team in history: Laurel and Hardy. Born Arthur Stanley Jefferson on June 16, 1890 in the town of Ulverston, Lancashire, UK, Laurel was one of five children born to Arthur Jefferson, a theatre manager, and Margaret Metcalfe Jefferson, an actress. Both of his parents were highly active in the theater, so Laurel spent much of his early years being raised by his maternal grandmother, Sarah Metcalfe.

When Laurel was a teen, the family moved to Glasgow, Scotland, where the young man began to work in theater. His hero was the legendary music hall comedian Dan Leno, and he based many of his early acts on Leno's work. Laurel gave his first professional performance at the Panopticon in Glasgow when he was sixteen years old, proving to be quite adept at pantomime and music hall sketches. In 1910, he joined Fred Karno's troupe of actors, and took the stage name "Stan Jefferson." For a time, he was an understudy for the group's star performer, Charlie Chaplin. Laurel would later credit Karno with teaching both him and Chaplin the ins and outs of slapstick comedy.

In 1917, the entire troupe toured America for the first time, and Laurel decided to stay. He even registered for military service during World War I, as required at the time under the Selective Service Act, but was not called up due to his resident alien status and deafness in one ear. Laurel broke into film in 1917, making his onscreen debut in "Nuts in May" (1917). He often appeared alongside Alice Cooke and Baldwin Cooke, two performers who would later become lifelong friends.

In 1921, he starred alongside Oliver Hardy in the short "The Lucky Dog" (1921), though the pair would not officially become Laurel and Hardy for another six years. Around this time, he also met Australian actress Mae Dahlberg, who was to become his partner in both comedy and romance. It was Dahlberg who suggested that he change his last name to Laurel, as "Stan Jefferson" had thirteen letters, and was therefore unlucky. They appeared in a number of films together, most notably the parody "Mud and Sand" (1922), but her headstrong temperament also cost Laurel a contract with Universal Studios.

Laurel gave up stage work in 1924, when he signed a deal with producer Joe Rock to make 12 two-reel comedies, which eventually included such early silent comedy classics as "Mandarin Mix-Up" (1924), "Monsieur Don't Care" (1924), "West of Hot Dog" (1924), and "Dr. Pyckle and Mr. Pryde" (1925). Once again, however, Dahlberg began inserting herself into Laurel's career, and became such a nuisance that Rock added a stipulation to Laurel's contract that she could not appear in any of Laurel's films.

The situation did not improve, and by 1925, Rock was at the end of his rope, and offered Dahlberg a cash settlement and a one-way ticket back to Australia, which she accepted. After the deal with Rock was up, Laurel decided that he was done with acting for the time being, and set out to write and direct films for Hal Roach Studios. He next worked with Hardy again, directing him in the film "Yes, Yes, Nanette!" (1925). Hardy was next scheduled to star in "Get 'Em Young" (1926), but when he was burned in an onset accident, Hal Roach decided to bring in Laurel to replace him. This marked Laurel's return to acting, and later that year, the pair also appeared in "45 Minutes From Hollywood" (1926), though they didn't share any scenes.

By 1927, Roach Studios supervising director Leo McCarey realized that the pair had great comedic rapport, what with Laurel's extreme deadpan playing perfectly against Hardy's flustered anger, and began casting them to appear together in a number of shorts, including "Slipping Wives" (1927), "Duck Soup" (1927), and "With Love and Hisses" (1927). Starting with "Putting the Pants on Phillip" (1927), the duo was billed as Laurel and Hardy, and before long set off on a highly prolific run of short films, including "The Battle of the Century" (1927), "Should Married Men Go Home?" (1928), "Two Tars" (1928), "Unaccustomed As We Are" (1929)(their first talkie), "Berth Marks" (1929), "Blotto" (1930), "Brats" (1930), "Another Fine Mess" (1930), and "Be Big!" (1931), amongst many others.

Laurel and Hardy made their feature debut in "The Hollywood Revue of 1929" (1929), and starred in their first full-length movie, "Pardon Us" (1931), two years later. They won their first and only Academy Award for the short film "The Music Box" (1932), the next year. Their winning streak was interrupted, however, when Laurel and Hal Roach got into a nasty contractual dispute, effectively breaking up his and Hardy's partnership for a time. Eventually, Laurel took Roach to court over the contractual dispute, but the case was dropped, and Laurel returned to Roach Studios in 1939, the same year he and Hardy reunited for "The Flying Deuces" (1939), released by General Service Studios.

That same year, he and Laurel made their two final films for Hal Roach, "A Chump at Oxford" (1940), and "Saps at Sea" (1940). After leaving Roach Studios, the duo made films with 20th Century Fox and MGM, but found less creative control than they had enjoyed in the past, and decided to part ways with the studios following the release of "The Bullfighters" (1945). Their next major project was a six-week tour of the United Kingdom in 1947. Neither men were sure how they would be received, but they were mobbed wherever they went, played to sold out theaters every night, and even performed for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Due to the rapturous response, the tour was extended to include stops in Scandinavia, Belgium, and France. The duo would embark on similar tours over the next few years, until 1954, but unfortunately they were marred by both men's declining health. During this time, Laurel was diagnosed with diabetes, and encouraged Hardy to work without him when he could. While Laurel got his health under control, Hardy appeared in films alongside John Wayne and Bing Crosby when the duo weren't on tour.

The final Laurel and Hardy film, "Atoll K" (1951), began production in 1950, and the process was arduous. The film was funded by a shady crew of European interest men, the cast and crew all came from different countries and could not speak to one another due to the language barrier, Laurel was forced to rewrite the entire script, and both men were ill during most of the production. No surprise, then, that "Atoll K" was an ignominious ending to the pair's career in film.

Due to Hardy's appearance on the popular series "This Is Your Life" (NBC, 1952-1961) in December of 1954, he and Laurel decided to give television a try, working with Hal Roach Jr. to develop a TV show based on the Mother Goose fables, set to begin airing in the fall of 1955. However, the series was put on hold indefinitely when Laurel suffered a stroke, and while he was recovering, Hardy was felled by a heart attack and a stroke. Hardy would suffer a number of strokes after this, until he died, on August 7, 1957, at the age of 65, of cerebral thrombosis.

Laurel was too ill to attend his friend and partner's funeral, and calling Hardy by his childhood nickname, said that "Babe would understand." According to those closest to him, Laurel was devastated by Hardy's death, and never fully recovered from the grief. With Hardy gone, Laurel refused to perform ever again. He passed the time in his modest Santa Monica apartment with his fifth wife, Ida Kitaeva Raphael, answering fan mail, and talking to fans on the phone, as his number was listed in the yellow pages, and he was apparently more than happy to carry on chatting with whomever happened to call, sometimes for hours on end.

In 1960, Laurel received an honorary Academy Award for his contributions to film comedy. That same year, after a lifetime of heavy smoking, he decided to quit cold turkey, but it proved to be too little too late. On February 23, 1965, four days after suffering a major heart attack, Stan Laurel died. He was 74 years old.