Rowby's Blog Stan Laurel
For those too young to know, Stan Laurel was the “dumb” half of what I consider the greatest comedy team of all times, Laurel & Hardy. They were extremely popular in the 1920’s through 1940’s. Their best comedies were made long before I was born, however their movies were shown over and over on television. As a young child I would roll on the floor in laughter watching their movies.
When I was about 16 I decided I would try to meet Stan Laurel. I contacted the Screen Actor’s Guild and they put me in touch with his agent, who somehow got in touch with Stan. Then one day I received a postcard from Stan welcoming me to visit him. I made my first visit with my school friend, Ellen Banks. Stan lived in a nice apartment in Santa Monica on Ocean Avenue. When I visited him he was much older than the movies that I enjoyed. However his famous smile remained the same. He was very gracious talking with his young fan. He patiently and friendly answered all of my questions. Among the items I remember about his apartment was his little typewriter, his Oscar, a movie projector that was given to him for his appearance on “This Is Your Life”. I also think he had some Laurel and Hardy string puppets, but my memory may be incorrect there.
I had one more visit with Stan. It was about 1964. Again he welcomed me into his apartment. I had a feeling his wife was there, but in another room, patently waiting for my visit to be over. He seemed to be happy and content and once again answered all of my many questions. I remember either at that visit or my previous visit he showed me that he was still writing “skits” for him and Ollie, who passed away several years before.
Then in 1965 Stan Laurel died. I went to his funeral in Burbank. The funeral was at Forest Lawn in Burbank, at a newly built chapel. There was a large crowd and newsreel cameras. Many celebrities were present, including the very popular Dick Van Dyke, as well as comedy great Buster Keaton. Inside the chapel, during the ceremonies, they played the Laurel & Hardy theme song. I have some mementos of the event, which I will sometime post on the site.
Laurel and Hardy are my favorites. And I feel privileged to have met Stan Laurel, one of my comedy heroes.
Hi, Rowby–I just wanted to thank you for posting this nice reminiscence of Stan. I just missed meeting him. At the age of six I was already a rabid Laurel & Hardy fan, and one morning as I was getting ready for school I said to my mom, “I wonder if Laurel or Hardy are still alive?” At that moment, my dad brought in the Los Angeles Times and on the front page it read, “Stan Laurel, 74, Film Comedian Dies at Home.” The timing of that was so spooky that I think it prompted me to meet and talk with everyone I could find who worked with the team. Ultimately, I interviewed about 65 people who were connected with them, and those interviews formed the basis of my book, “Laurel & Hardy: The Magic Behind the Movies.” I found out about your site through a link posted by Mark Evanier on his weblog. I’m sure I’m going to enjoy reading it often.
With best wishes–Randy Skretvedt
Way cool.
Dear Mr.Goren,
Thanks for sharing this wonderful story about how you met
and became friends with Stan Laurel.
He was truly one of film and music hall comedy’s gentle
genius’.
I don’t know if you are aware of it?
But..in the rare nerwsreel film footage of Stan’s Furneral..NYC based
kids tv host/performer..Chuck McCann is right behind you in that crowd
scene at the end of that footage.
Chuck was also a dear friend of Stan’s and he would write to him
and visit him when he could.
According to my interview with Chuck back in 1987..he told me
that Stan was involved in the creation and development of his puppet
skits for his daily film comedy wraparound kids tv show:”Laurel & Hardy
& Chuck”.
Chuck would send scripts to Stan via the mail and he would send
the scripts back to McCann with his sugguestions on how to add better
gags etc to the script,penciled into the margins.
The two of them would talk about the show later on the
phone.
I hope that you might add this info to your website?
Thanks For Remembering Stan Laurel,
Yours Truly,
Kevin S.Butler At Stanbabe@Mac.Com
Hi Kevin (and all of the other commentors who are arriving from Mark Evanier’s site…
I will do another screen capture and add the image of Chuck who I can indeed see in the background. Fascinating that Stan helped Chuck in the fine tuning of his show.
Stan was up to date on the technology of the day. I read somewhere that he offered to re-edit the Laurel and Hardy films for television in order, for example, to remove some of the longer pauses between gags because those pauses were included to allow for the large movie theater audiences to laugh — while at home, with smaller groups of people watching the L&H comedies the “laugh pauses” would not need to be quite as long. Now either I read that somewhere or Stan told me that when I visited him.
By the way another great Stan Laurel website is http://lettersfromstan.com/
It is where I first found a segment of the newsreel footage. I also have somewhere a link to the DVD company that sells the complete newsreel (runs about 10 minutes). I’ll put that link up here in a day or so.
Rowby
Dear Mr.Goren,
Stan did indeed have his Oscar,his typewriter and two L&H marionettes
(String Puppets)in his residential hotel room at The Oceana Hotel in Santa
Monica,Ca.
I’ve only seen these items on rare silent color home movie footage
..but I do know that they exsisted.
Mr.Ralph Edwards..the creator,producer and the first host of
“The This Is Your Life Radio & TV Show”gave Stan and Babe kinnie
films of their appeaarance together on The tv version of “This Is Your
Life” and a Bell & Howell movie projector to screen the show for their
families and friends.
Again,
I only recall seeing the show at a private screening and Mr.Edwards
mentioned that the boys and their families would get kinnie films of that
broadcast and a B&H movie projector.
I hope that you might add this extra info to your website?
Thanks For adding my previous info about the newsreel footage
of Stan’s funeral and Thanks for remembering Stan Laurel,
Yours Truly,
Kevin S.Butler At Stanbabe@Mac.Com