Fate stepped in, however, when after Hardy suffered a minor accident, Laurel was enlisted to help out with acting duties as a temporary member of Roach Studios' Comedy All Star Players. Initially, Laurel intended to work for Roach primarily as a writer and director on such films as "Yes, Yes Nanette" (1925), which starred his future performing partner, Hardy. When his deal with Rock came to an end, Laurel next went to work at the hugely influential Hal Roach Studios. Both Laurel and Dahlberg accepted their respective offers. The deal, however, held one most unusual stipulation - that Mae Dahlberg, who many felt had become a hindrance to Laurel's career, would not appear in any further films alongside her "husband." Additionally, a separate deal was made with Dahlberg that included several thousand dollars and a one-way ticket to her homeland of Australia.
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Eventually, Laurel committed himself to cinema fulltime, when he signed a 12-picture contract with producer-director Joe Rock. It was a period of transition for Laurel, as he vacillated between the smoke-filled stages of vaudeville and the early sound stages of Hollywood, where he appeared in an early, pre-Laurel and Hardy film that also featured Oliver "Babe" Hardy, titled "The Lucky Dog" (1921).
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tour and young Laurel went with them, only to later go out on his own with several other actors, writing and performing his own original material that included a sketch called "The Nutty Burglars." It was around this time that he changed his last name to Laurel and teamed with his common-law wife at the time, Mae Dahlberg, a vaudevillian actress with whom he co-starred in his first short silent film, "Nuts in May" (1917). Later, he joined Fred Karno's group of traveling performers where he eventually became an understudy to none other than Charlie Chaplin. Laurel made his stage debut at the age of 16 - much to chagrin of his father, who wanted Laurel to go into the management side of the business - and was soon a member of a touring company. Naturally inclined toward a life in the theater, he returned to work with his parents at his father's Metropole Theatre in Glasgow, Scotland after completing his required studies at English schools in Bishop Auckland and Tynemouth. to parents Arthur, a theater owner, and Margaret, an actress, Laurel grew up the second of five children at his grandparents' home until the age of six. In nearly 190 films that spanned the silent and sound eras, most of them alongside collaborator "Ollie" Hardy, Stan Laurel engrained himself into the very essence of cinema, and his gifts have been rediscovered by future generations of appreciative fans.īorn Arthur Stanley Jefferson on Jin Ulverston, U.K. Although their relationship with Roach eventually became irreparably strained and later work with major studios MGM and 20th Century Fox yielded less-than-memorable films, the comedy duo remained popular with audiences in American and Europe well into the 1950s. At the height of the Great Depression, Laurel and Hardy's brand of humor, one that emphasized the importance of smiling in the face of adversity, won over audiences in desperate need of laughter with films like "The Music Box" (1932), "Sons of the Desert" (1933), and "Babes in Toyland" (1934). So strong were their comedic abilities, that even the addition of sound to film - the death knell to the careers of many of their contemporaries - did nothing to diminish their appeal. Early Laurel and Hardy shorts included the films "Duck Soup" (1927) and "Putting Pants on Philip" (1927). That is, until coincidence and an astute director paired him with another up-and-coming comedic actor, the portly prince of the pratfall, Oliver Hardy. Although he had appeared in dozens of short silent films, Laurel's intention upon joining Hal Roach Studios was to work primarily as a writer-director. and as an understudy to none other than the great Charlie Chaplin, Laurel soon made the trek to America and the nascent film hub of Hollywood. Getting his start on the vaudeville stages of his native U.K.
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With his prominently pointed chin, bowler hat, and unwavering childlike grin, comedy legend Stan Laurel became one of the most iconic faces in the history of film as one-half of the acting team Laurel and Hardy.