Oliver Hardy

Oliver "Norvell" Hardy's father Oliver Hardy (1844-1892) was a sergeant in Company K, 16th Georgia Infantry of the Confederate States Army. Oliver's unit fought with the Army of Northern Virginia from the Seven Days' Battles to Gettysburg. Oliver, Jr. was the son to Oliver, Sr. and his third wife.

Although his parents were never in show business, as a young boy Oliver Hardy was a gifted singer and, by age eight, was performing with minstrel shows. In 1910 he ran a movie theatre, which he preferred to studying law.

In 1913 he became a comedy actor with the Lubin Company in Florida and began appearing in a long series of shorts; his debut film was Outwitting Dad (1914).

He appeared in he 1914-15 series of "Pokes and Jabbs" shorts, and from 1916-18 he was in the "Plump and Runt" series.

From 1919-21 he was a regular in the "Jimmy Aubrey" series of shorts, and from 1921-25 he worked as an actor and co-director of comedy shorts for Larry Semon. In addition to appearing in two-reeler comedies, he found time to make westerns and even melodramas in which he played the heavy.

in the mid-1920s both he and Laurel wee working for comedy producer Hal Roach, although not as a team.

He is most famous, however, as the partner of British comic Stan Laurel, with whom he had played a bit part in The Lucky Dog (1921).

In a moment of inspiration Roach teamed them together, and their first film as a team was 45 Minutes from Hollywood (1926).

Their first release for Roach through MGM was Sugar Daddies (1927) and the first with star billing was From Soup to Nuts (1928).

Stan and Ollie made their first comic appearance in issue 46 of the American The Realm of Fun and Fiction in December 1929. In 1949 they had their own comic - the Laurel and Hardy Comic- produced by Jubilee publications and Archer St John Press. They made their first appearance in the centre spread of the English comic Film Fun in issue 564 dated November 1930 which moved to the front page in March 1934 and remained there until 1957. The popularity of the strip found it syndicated abroad where in Italy it appeared in Bombolo in 1934 and Cine Comico, a film weekly. The same year a rival company produced the Mastro Remo comic with them on the cover in a strip in colour called Stan e Oli. In France in 1934 there was a colour strip of them in Cri-Cri. After the war an Italian publisher produced an all Laurel and Hardy comic called Criche e Croc.

In 1930, he lived at 621 North Alta Drive in Beverly Hills, California.

They became a huge hit as a comedy team, and after several years of two-reelers, Roach decided to star them in features, their first of which was Pardon Us (1931).

Entered St. Vincent's Hospital to have his tonsils removed the day after filming wrapped on March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934).

They clicked with audiences in features, too, and starred in such classics as Way Out West (1937), March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934) and Block-Heads (1938).

Hardy appeared without Laurel in a few features, such as Zenobia (1939) with Harry Langdon, The Fighting Kentuckian (1949) in a semi-comedic role as a frontiersman alongside John Wayne and Riding High (1950), in a cameo role.

They eventually parted ways with Roach and in the mid-1940s signed on with Twentieth Century-Fox. Unfortunately, Fox did not let them have the autonomy they had at Roach, where Laurel basically wrote and directed their films, though others were credited, and their films became more assembly-line and formulaic.

He was voted, along with comedy partner Stan Laurel, the 45th Greatest Movie Star of all time by Entertainment Weekly.

Their popularity waned and less popular during the war years, and they made their last film for Fox in 1946.

While he and Stan Laurel were between contracts with Hal Roach, John Wayne asked him to co-star in The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), a film Wayne was producing. Wayne and Hardy had previously appeared together on stage for a wartime benefit, and Wayne knew the value of comedy in his pictures. Hardy at first refused, fearing rumors of a breakup with Stan; but Laurel encouraged his partner to take the role and Hardy delivered a memorable light comedy performance.

Several years later they made their final appearance as a team in a French film, a troubled and haphazard production eventually, after several name changes, called Utopia (1950), generally regarded to be their worst film.

Suffered a severe stroke on September 12, 1956 that left him paralyzed and unable to speak.

When Ollie died in 1957, his partner, Stan Laurel, pledged he would never perform again. Despite offers, he never did.

He was posthumously awarded a Star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1500 Vine Street in Hollywood, California on February 8, 1960.

Subject of one of five 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating famous comedians, issued in booklet form 29 August 1991. He is shown with his partner Stan Laurel. The stamp designs were drawn by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. The other comedians honored in the set are Edgar Bergen (with alter ego Charlie McCarthy), Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.