By Mona Hatfield
FROM WIKIPEDIA COMMONS
Laurel and Hardy were a British-American comedy duo act during the early Classical Hollywood era of American cinema, consisting of Englishman Stan Laurel (1890–1965) and American Oliver Hardy (1892–1957). Starting their career as a duo in the silent film era, they later successfully transitioned to “talkies“. From the late 1920s to the mid-1950s, they were internationally famous for their slapstick comedy, with Laurel playing the clumsy, childlike friend to Hardy’s pompous bully. Their signature theme song, known as “The Cuckoo Song”, “Ku-Ku”, or “The Dance of the Cuckoos” (by Hollywood composer T. Marvin Hatley) was heard over their films’ opening credits, and became as emblematic of them as their bowler hats.
Prior to emerging as a team, both had well-established film careers. Laurel had acted in over 50 films, and worked as a writer and director, while Hardy was in more than 250 productions. Both had appeared in The Lucky Dog (1921), but were not teamed at the time. They first appeared together in a short film in 1926, when they signed separate contracts with the Hal Roach film studio. They officially became a team in 1927 when they appeared in the silent short Putting Pants on Philip. They remained with Roach until 1940, and then appeared in eight B movie comedies for 20th Century Fox and Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer from 1941 to 1945. After finishing their film commitments at the end of 1944, they concentrated on performing stage shows, and embarked on a music hall tour of England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. They made their last film in 1950, a French–Italian co-production called Atoll K.
They appeared as a team in 107 films, starring in 32 short silent films, 40 short sound films, and 23 full-length feature films. They also made 12 guest or cameo appearances, including in the Galaxy of Stars promotional film of 1936. On December 1, 1954, they made their sole American television appearance, when they were surprised and interviewed by Ralph Edwards on his live NBC-TV program This Is Your Life. Since the 1930s, their works have been released in numerous theatrical reissues, television revivals, 8-mm and 16-mm home movies, feature-film compilations, and home videos. In 2005, they were voted the seventh-greatest comedy act of all time by a UK poll of professional comedians. The official Laurel and Hardy appreciation society is The Sons of the Desert, after a fictitious fraternal society in the film of the same name.
TODAY’S ALMANAC
Question of the Day
What was the biggest volcanic eruption in the United States?
Advice of the Day
Home Hint of the Day
Word of the Day
Solar eclipse
Puzzle of the Day
Why is summer like the letter N?
Born
- Sir Christopher Wren (architect) –
- John Dewey (philosopher) –
- Charles Ives (composer) –
- Jelly Roll Morton (jazz musician) –
- Arlene Francis (actress) –
- Grandpa Jones (country music performer) –
- Art Buchwald (journalist) –
- Dr. Joyce Brothers (psychologist) –
- Mickey Mantle (baseball player) –
- Michael McClure (poet) –
- Jerry Orbach (actor) –
- Tom Petty (musician; Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers) –
- Keith Hernandez (baseball player) –
- Viggo Mortensen (actor) –
Died
- Sir Richard Burton (explorer) –
- Herbert Hoover (31st U.S. president) –
- Jane Wyatt (actress) –
- Oscar de la Renta (fashion designer) –
Events
- The town clock in Halifax, Nova Scotia, began keeping time–
- Louisiana Purchase ratified by U.S. Senate–
- 49th parallel determined as western U.S/Canadian border–
- Last day of Prince of Wales’s North American tour, Portland, Maine–
- Canadian newspaper La Presse debuted–
- The first cork-centered baseball, invented by Benjamin Shibe, was used in the World Series in Chicago–
- Laurel and Hardy’s The Flying Deuces debuted–
- Jacqueline Kennedy married Greek shipping magnate Aristotle Onassis–
- John Bardeen became the first person to win two Nobel Prizes in the same field. He received the awards in 1956 and 1972 for his theory of superconductivity and development of electronic transistors–
- A plane carrying the group Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in Mississippi–
- Oakland/Berkeley firestorm began in California–
- The Boston Red Sox made baseball history by becoming the first baseball team to lose the first three games of a best-of-seven series, then come back with four victories to win it–
- ABC-TV pulled the plug on Miss America, leaving the famous beauty pageant without a network television sponsor for the first time in 50 years–
Weather
- Sheridan, Wyoming, experienced a bad snowstorm–
COURTESY www.almanac.com
