Oliver Hardy

Oliver Hardy (born Norvell Hardy; January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor
famous as one half of Laurel and Hardy, the classic double act that began in the era of silent films
and lasted over 31 years, from 1926 to 1957. Hardy’s star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located
at 1500 Vine Street, Hollywood, California.

Unlike his future screen partner Stan Laurel, American comedian Oliver Hardy did not come from a
show business family. His father was a lawyer who died when Hardy was ten; his mother was a hotel
owner in both his native Georgia and in Florida. The young Hardy became fascinated with show
business through the stories spun by the performers who stayed at his mother's hotel, and at age
eight he ran away to join a minstrel troupe. Possessing a beautiful singing voice, Hardy studied
music for a while, but quickly became bored with the regimen; the same boredom applied to his years
at Georgia Military College (late in life, Hardy claimed to have briefly studied law at the
University of Georgia, but chances are that he never got any farther than filling out an
application). Heavy-set and athletic, Hardy seemed more interested in sports than in anything else;
while still a teenager, he umpired local baseball games, putting on such an intuitively comic
display of histrionics that he invariably reduced the fans to laughter.

In 1910, he opened the first movie theater in Milledgeville, Georgia, and as a result became
intrigued with the possibilities of film acting. Traveling to Jacksonville, Florida in 1913, he
secured work at the Lubin Film Company, where thanks to his 250-pound frame he was often cast as a
comic villain. From 1915-25, Hardy appeared in support of such comedians as Billy West (the famous
Chaplin imitator), Jimmy Aubrey, Larry Semon (Hardy played the Tin Woodman in Semon's 1925 version
of The Wizard of Oz), and Bobby Ray. An established "heavy" by 1926, Hardy signed with the Hal Roach
studios, providing support to such headliners as Our Gang and Charley Chase. With the rest of the
Roach stock company, Hardy appeared in the Comedy All-Stars series, where he was frequently directed
by fellow Roach contractee Stan Laurel (with whom Hardy had briefly appeared on-screen in the
independently produced 1918 two-reeler Lucky Dog). At this point, Laurel was more interested in
writing and directing than performing, but was lured back before the cameras by a hefty salary
increase. Almost inadvertently, Laurel began sharing screen time with Hardy in such All-Stars shorts
as Slipping Wives (1927), Duck Soup (1927) and With Love and Hisses (1927). Roach's supervising
director Leo McCarey, noticing how well the pair worked together, began teaming them deliberately,
which led to the inauguration of the "Laurel and Hardy" series in late 1927.

At first, the comedians indulged in the cliched fat-and-skinny routines, with Laurel the fall guy
for the bullying Hardy. Gradually the comedians developed the multidimensional screen characters
with which we're so familiar today. The corpulent Hardy was the pompous know-it-all, whose arrogance
and stubbornness always got him in trouble; the frail Stan was the blank-faced man-child, whose
carelessness and inability to grasp an intelligent thought prompted impatience from his partner.
Underlining all this was the genuine affection the characters held for each other, emphasized by
Hardy's courtly insistence upon introducing Stan as "my friend, Mr. Laurel." Gradually Hardy adopted
the gestures and traits that rounded out the "Ollie" character: The tie-twiddle, the graceful
panache with which he performed such simple tasks as ringing doorbells and signing hotel registers,
and the "camera look," in which he stared directly at the camera in frustration or amazement over
Laurel's stupidity.

Fortunately Laurel and Hardy's voices matched their characters perfectly, so they were able to make
a successful transition to sound, going on to greater popularity than before. Sound added even more
ingredients to Hardy's comic repertoire, not the least of which were such catch-phrases as "Why
don't you do something to help me?" and "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." Laurel and
Hardy graduated from two-reelers to feature films with 1931's Pardon Us, though they continued to
make features and shorts simultaneously until 1935. While Laurel preferred to burn the midnight oil
as a writer and film editor, Hardy stopped performing each day at quitting time. He occupied his
leisure time with his many hobbies, including cardplaying, cooking, gardening, and especially golf.
The team nearly broke up in 1939, not because of any animosity between them but because of Stan's
contract dispute with Hal Roach. While this was being settled, Hardy starred solo in Zenobia (1939),
a pleasant but undistinguished comedy about a southern doctor who tends to a sick elephant. Laurel
and Hardy reteamed in late 1939 for two more Roach features and for the Boris Morros/RKO production
The Flying Deuces (1939). Leaving Roach in 1940, the team performed with the USO and the Hollywood
Victory Caravan, then signed to make features at 20th Century-Fox and MGM. The resultant eight
films, produced between 1941 and 1945, suffered from too much studio interference and too little
creative input from Laurel and Hardy, and as such are but pale shadows of their best work at Roach.
In 1947, the team was booked for the first of several music hall tours of Europe and the British
Isles, which were resounding successes and drew gigantic crowds wherever Stan and Ollie went.

Upon returning to the States, Hardy soloed again in a benefit stage production of What Price Glory
directed by John Ford. In 1949, he played a substantial supporting role in The Fighting Kentuckian,
which starred his friend John Wayne; as a favor to another friend, Bing Crosby, Hardy showed up in a
comic cameo in 1950's Riding High. Back with Laurel, Hardy appeared in the French-made comedy Atoll
K (1951), an unmitigated disaster that unfortunately brought the screen career of Laurel and Hardy
to a close. After more music hall touring abroad, the team enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the
U.S. thanks to constant showings of their old movies on television. Laurel and Hardy were on the
verge of starring in a series of TV comedy specials when Stan Laurel suffered a stroke. While he was
convalescing, Hardy endured a heart attack, and was ordered by his doctor to lose a great deal of
weight. In 1956, Hardy was felled a massive stroke that rendered him completely inactive; he held
on, tended day and night by his wife Lucille, until he died in August of 1957. Ironically, Oliver
Hardys passing occurred at the same time that he and Stan Laurel were being reassessed by fans and
critics as the greatest comedy team of all time.