As one of the most iconic comedy duos of all time, you probably know who Laurel and Hardy are, even if you've never watched one of their films. The duo teamed up in the 1920s, and had significant and diverse careers before they even met, but it was their unique chemistry that made them stars.
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00:00Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy had an indelible effect on cinema. But do you know which other
00:05silent film star Laurel toured with before either of them broke into film, and whose
00:09eyes almost destroyed their career before it started? Keep watching to find out.
00:14During his early years in England, and prior to meeting Oliver Hardy, Stan Laurel, born
00:18Arthur Stanley Jefferson, was in a comedy duo with a man named Ted Desmond. In 1912,
00:24Desmond and Laurel toured the Netherlands and Belgium under the stage name the Bardo
00:27Brothers. Later that same year, Laurel traveled to the United States as part of another comedy
00:32troupe, Fred Karno's Army, and the Bardo Brothers were no more.
00:36While Laurel found success in Hollywood, Desmond remained in England, where he played in a
00:40band and managed arcades. Still, Desmond didn't appear to grow resentful of his old partner's
00:44success, and the pair remained friends long after their comedy act dissolved. They continued
00:49to correspond via letters and postcards for over 50 years, and in 2018, 11 of those were
00:54auctioned off for a total of £4,580.
00:59When Stan Laurel sailed to New York to perform with Fred Karno's Army, he shared a cabin
01:03with none other than Charlie Chaplin, who was also in Karno's Army. According to Time,
01:08Laurel had previously worked as Chaplin's understudy when he lived in England, and continued
01:12to do so while they toured North America.
01:14In 1913, Chaplin was recruited away from the troupe and signed a contract that would launch
01:18his international success. Karno's Army broke up the following year.
01:23After Chaplin and Laurel went their separate ways, Laurel continued to talk about Chaplin
01:26throughout his life. Chaplin, however, did not mention Laurel in his in-depth autobiography.
01:31Years later, television personality Dick Cavett met Laurel and brought up Chaplin's failure
01:35to write about him, to which Laurel replied,
01:38"...I don't deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence with Charlie."
01:42In 1917, Stan Laurel met Australian singer, dancer, and actress Charlotte May Dahlberg.
01:47According to IMDb, the pair moved in together and had a seven-year common-law marriage.
01:52Dahlberg was reportedly responsible for coining the stage surname Laurel after seeing a photo
01:56of a Roman general wearing a laurel wreath. During their relationship, Dahlberg and Laurel
02:00performed a vaudeville act called Stan and May Laurel. In 1921, the duo performed at
02:05the Pantages Theatre in Spokane, Washington. A local critic wrote of their show for the
02:09Spokesman Review, calling it,
02:11"...burlesque that oversteps the limits of good taste too often."
02:16Oliver Hardy, on the other hand, got his start in the film industry behind the scenes. In
02:201913, he joined Lubin Motion Pictures in Jacksonville, Florida. There, he worked on
02:24everything from lighting to props, and ultimately became a script clerk. He made his debut on
02:29screen the following year in the lost 1914 comedy movie Outwith Dad. In 1916, he continued
02:35to work in Jacksonville at the VIMS Southern Studio, where he starred in 35 slapstick films
02:39with Billy Rouge as Plump and Runt.
02:42In 1917, Hardy discovered that some of his colleagues were stealing money from the studio,
02:46which eventually led to the studio's demise. Hardy later began making movies with Hal Roach,
02:52and ultimately signed a contract with Roach's studio. His first Roach film was released
02:55the same month that Stan Laurel signed his own contract with Roach in 1925. By the time
03:00Laurel joined Hal Roach's studio, he had worked on 82 films as a solo act, but had reportedly
03:05never felt a strong connection with the audience as a solo film star. For his part, Hardy had
03:10acted in more than 250 productions prior to joining forces with Laurel. The rest, as they
03:15say, is comedy history.
03:17But it was almost over before it began, and it was Stan Laurel's eye color that almost
03:21brought his film career to a screeching halt. After he signed with Hal Roach's studios as
03:25a potential screen star, he was ushered into a behind-the-scenes role when the studio executives
03:30saw his eyes on film. Roach told the film magazine The Silent Picture,
03:34"...we found out that because of the film at the time — he had very light blue eyes
03:37— his eyes wouldn't photograph, so he became a writer. And I think for about a year he
03:42was a writer at the studio."
03:43Until the 1920s, studios used black-and-white orthochromatic film, which was blue-blind.
03:49In the 1920s, Roach Studios managed to obtain the newly introduced panchromatic film. Roach
03:53continued,
03:54"...we made a test for him on panchromatic film and found that his eyes now did photograph,
03:58so we put him in a bit, but he was still a writer."
04:01Laurel's role changed once Roach saw him onscreen alongside Oliver Hardy. Based on the pair's
04:06onscreen compatibility, the studio began bringing Laurel into more and more film roles. Roach
04:10added,
04:11"...they seemed to complement each other, so the next one we gave them a bit more. Here
04:14were two funny men who could play straight to the other one, and I thought that would
04:18be a very good thing for comedy."
04:21Laurel and Hardy's relationship with Hal Roach's film studio soured in the 1930s. The decade
04:25brought about the rise of full-length films, which required larger budgets and stricter
04:29parameters. According to Danny Lawrence's The Making of Stan Laurel, Echoes of a British
04:34Boyhood, Laurel found that this led to a loss of control over the process of filmmaking,
04:38as well as the finished results.
04:41The conflict intensified in 1934 during the making of Babes in Toyland, when they clashed
04:45over how to bring the story to life. Henry Brandon, who played the villain in the film,
04:49said,
04:50"...Roach and Laurel were arguing constantly while it was being made. Roach would tell
04:53Laurel his suggestions on the comedy scenes. It was a real battle of egos. But Laurel got
04:58to do things his way."
05:00Laurel and Hardy ultimately left Roach's studio for 20th Century Fox in 1941.
05:05In the age of silent film, appearances were everything. Like many others, the success
05:10of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's comedy duo hinged on contrast, and the most striking
05:14element of visual contrast was the size difference between the two. The large Hardy reportedly
05:19stood over six feet tall and weighed close to 300 pounds. His size had hindered his chances
05:23of becoming a leading man, but it helped his comedy success alongside the slight Laurel.
05:28In addition, Laurel kept his hair long on top, while Hardy pasted his hair flat to his
05:33head. Laurel also wore his famous bowler hat a couple of sizes too small so that it perched
05:37high on his head, while Hardy wore a comically oversized bowler hat.
05:41While performing as a double act, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy played clearly defined characters.
05:46Laurel was the childlike, incompetent nuisance, routinely pestering and annoying Hardy, while
05:51Hardy took on the role of the comedic straight man.
05:53Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into.
05:58There was also a disparity between the pair's real-life relationship and that of their characters
06:02on stage and screen. As a comedy duo, Laurel and Hardy went together like peanut butter
06:06and jelly, but according to Smithsonian Magazine, they were not especially close outside of
06:10work. Laurel was reportedly a workaholic who spent every spare minute editing, writing,
06:15or generating ideas for future films. Meanwhile, Hardy took his work seriously while he was
06:19doing it, but spent his free time drinking and gambling.
06:23The impact of Laurel and Hardy lives on in the comedy world decades later, and many have
06:27theorized that their slapstick act influenced The Simpsons. According to The Guardian, David
06:32Silberman, the show's chief animator, once asked Simpsons creator Matt Groening,
06:36"'Wouldn't you say getting hit on the head is a good way to make people laugh?' Groening
06:40replied, "'Well, hey, we're both fans of Laurel and Hardy.'"
06:43Oliver Hardy allegedly inspired Homer Simpson, and particularly the character's catchphrase.
06:48"'Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough! Dough!'
06:53Groening continued to The Guardian,
06:55"'Hardy did dough a little bit, but really it was Scottish actor James Finlayson who
06:59did a nice big dough right to the camera.'"
07:02The catchphrase may have been heavily inspired by Finlayson's performance, but it was in
07:05the Laurel and Hardy film Way Out West, in which it was coined.
07:09In 1954, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy headed to a Hollywood hotel to meet up with an old
07:14friend. Once they arrived, they realized they'd been lured there under false pretenses and
07:18were instead being pushed onto the television show This Is Your Life with host Ralph Edwards.
07:23It would be their first live television appearance, and their only one to air in the United States.
07:28Laurel told TV Guide of his surprise appearance,
07:30"'It was a staggering experience. Hardy and I are both great television fans, and we've
07:35been planning to do something on TV, but we've certainly never intended to start out on an
07:40unrehearsed network show.'"
07:41Even so, the pair criticized the use of commercial breaks during television broadcasts. Laurel
07:45continued,
07:46"'It's a little disturbing to see ourselves on TV now. We're being used to sell products
07:50we've never even heard of, and someone else is making all the money.'"
07:54Oliver Hardy died of a massive stroke on August 7, 1957, at the age of 65. Stan Laurel reportedly
08:01did not attend his former partner's funeral, saying to Time magazine,
08:05"'He would understand.'"
08:07Despite Laurel's lifelong obsession with film work, he never appeared in another film without
08:10Hardy. In 1955, Laurel suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed for the remainder
08:15of his life. The night before his death, a decade later, on February 23, 1965, he suffered
08:21a heart seizure that was so severe he could not be transported to a hospital. Instead,
08:25he was cared for at home by the same nurse that had cared for Hardy shortly before his
08:29death eight years prior. Laurel died of a heart attack at the age of 74.
08:33Dr. John H. Perrott, who visited Laurel at home the morning before he died, told the
08:37L.A. Times,
08:38"'It was the first time I'd seen him that he didn't crack some kind of a joke. He'd
08:42had severe illnesses before, but they never stopped him from joking.'"