Oliver Hardy
Oliver Norvell Hardy (nickname Babe ; born January 18, 1892 in Harlem , Georgia as Norvell Hardy , † August 7, 1957 in Hollywood , California ) was an American comedian, film actor and silent film director, who was mainly part of the legendary comedian duo Laurel and Hardy became world famous. In addition to his partner Stan Laurel , Hardy played the character of the self-important Ollie, who is only supposedly superior to Stan and who often gets into awkward situations due to his arrogance.
Over a period of thirty years (1921–1951) the team made a total of 107 films. Before the artistic partnership actually began in 1927, Hardy had worked in around 270 silent films, of which only a good 100 have survived.
Life
youth
Norvell Hardy was only ten months old when his father Oliver died. He spent his youth in Milledgeville, Georgia , where his mother ran a hotel. He was a musically gifted, sangeslustiger boy and sat down next to the school for a while irregular singing lessons at the Conservatory in Atlanta , when Adolf Dahm-Petersen .
Professional beginnings
In 1910 he began working as the manager and projectionist of the Palace Theater , Milledgeville's first cinema. It was there that he saw the early silent film comedies and decided to give this genre a try. In 1912 he left Milledgeville and moved to Jacksonville, Florida , where the fledgling cinema industry was flourishing. There he could not find a job in the film industry for the time being and had to earn his living by performing as a singer. He did the same when he moved to Atlanta in 1913, where he met his first wife, the pianist Madelyn Saloshin, and married that same year.
Acting career
In 1914 he returned to Jacksonville with his wife and found work as a film actor for the Lubin Company. His first film was Outwitting Dad . After successful appearances in short films such as the surviving, independently produced Something in Her Eye (1915), a series of one-act plays about the characters Plump & Runt followed in 1916 for the Vim Comedy Company , in which he played the lead role with Billy Ruge. He was also able to try his hand at directing some of his films for this production company.
After he left Vim, Hardy specialized in the role of the "straight man", opponent or villain, mostly with the strong facial hair that was common at the time. In this capacity he appeared regularly in the short films of Charlie Chaplin imitator Billy West (1917/18, Hardy in the role of Eric Campbell ) and those of the comedian Jimmy Aubrey (1919-21), who later starred in That's My Wife . At least in Great Britain Hardy was already so popular at this time that the publisher Amalgamated Press (later Fleetway) dedicated the comic strip "The Artful Antics of Babe Hardy" to him in 1920/21 (an honor denied by both Aubrey and "solo star" Laurel stayed).
First in 1919 and then regularly from 1921, Hardy was an indispensable part of Larry Semon's then extremely popular films, which finally made him known to the general public. He also embodied a crook in the 1921 Stan Laurel short film The Lucky Dog , which showed the two future comedian stars together for the first time and purely by chance. In Buster Keaton's feature-length debut The Three Ages ( The Three Ages / Ben Akiba Has Lied! ) From 1923 Hardy was absent despite a widespread rumor: Kewpie Morgan , who was often mistaken for him in this film , later played in the Laurel & Hardy film Babes in Toyland ( Revenge is Sweet / Adventure in Toyland ) with. Nevertheless, in contrast to Laurel, Hardy was also seen in long silent films, including a. 1925 Tin Man in Larry Semon adaptation of The Wizard of Oz ( The Wizard of Oz ) and 1927 in Western No Man's Law .
Duo with Laurel
From 1925 both Hardy and Laurel worked for Hal Roach and stood for the film producer, sometimes solo, sometimes coincidentally together in front of the camera. After Roach was made aware of how well the two harmonized by his writer or director Leo McCarey , he used the potential by systematically building Laurel and Hardy as a team from 1927 onwards. Within the partnership, Hardy usually played the boastful, self-immensely overestimating man of the world who fails because of his claims; In relation to the character embodied by Laurel, he was the supposedly superior, pompous and respectful father figure, but who ultimately showed similar infantile traits. Hardy's trademark has been a. his suffering face turned to the viewer in close-up when his partner had committed another faux pas , the embarrassed waving of his tie and the saying “Well, here's another nice mess you've gotten me into” (“There you have me yes, a nice soup again ").
While Laurel was working on the script or editing of a film, "Babe", as Hardy was nicknamed, concentrated exclusively on the acting part. He preferred to indulge in his hobby, playing golf , which earned him a low handicap and the reputation of being one of the to have been the best player of his time. Hardy was also a Freemason and a member of Solomon Lodge No. 20 in Jacksonville. One of the most famous films, which allude to Freemasonry, the film Sons of the Desert ( Sons of the Desert ) in 1933. There, Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy embark on a convention of Shriners in Chicago , carry their Fes and meet in an oasis ( Masonic Lodge ).
During his partnership with Laurel, Hardy rarely performed without him. In 1935 he had to request the producer David O. Selznick almost the role of Micawber in the MGM - film adaptation of Charles Dickens ' novel David Copperfield get, the director, would George Cukor not have been against it. When there was a crisis between Laurel and Roach in 1939, the latter gave Hardy the lead role in the comedy Zenobia ( Zenobia, the fairground elephant ), in which ex-comedian Harry Langdon also took part. It is often claimed that Roach wanted to start the two comedians as a new duo. On the other hand, however, the fact that both did not act as a team in the film, but mostly each had their own scenes.
Late career and death
According to the preliminary end of the common film career Laurel and Hardy in 1945 joined Hardy in 1949 nor in the Western The Fighting Kentuckian (Close Call) as a comic sidekick of John Wayne and had in 1950 a cameo appearance as a racetrack visitors next Bing Crosby in Frank Capra- Film Riding High (laugh and cry with me) . In 1951 he stood in front of the camera for Atoll K (Dick and Doof inherit an island) one last time with Laurel.
In the mid-1950s, Oliver Hardy lost weight to protect his health. However, he suffered a stroke in 1956 and was then almost completely paralyzed. After two more strokes, he died on August 7, 1957 at the age of 65. He was buried in Valhalla Memorial Park, North Hollywood in the Masonic Section.
The asteroid (2866) Hardy bears his name.
In memory of his father, who died early, he always put his first name in front of his.
Solo filmography
Especially in the early creative years up to 1927, Oliver Hardy was involved in many short films, which explains the large number of film titles.
The most important German voice actors for Hardy were Arno Paulsen in the 1950s and 1960s and Michael Habeck in the 1970s.
1914 - 1915 - 1916 - 1917 - 1918 - 1919 - 1920 - 1921 - 1922 - 1923 - 1924 - 1925 - 1926 - 1927 - Later Films - Unconfirmed Appearances
Films without Stan Laurel (until 1928)
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(From here on all 20s films for Hal Roach , except for the Fox western The Gentle Cyclone and the unexpected detour to Mack Sennett , Crazy to Act .)
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Later films
- Zenobia (Roach feature film with Harry Langdon ) (1939)
- The Fighting Kentuckian (Republic Pictures, starring John Wayne ) (1949)
- Laugh and cry with me (Paramount, directed by Frank Capra , only cameo) (1950)
Unconfirmed appearances
- The Artist's Model (1916)
- Terrible Kate (1917)
- His Movie Mustache (1917)
- Bad Kate (1917)
- This Is Not My Room (1917)
- Pipe Dreams and Prizes (1920)
- The Perfect Lady (1924)
- Roaring Lions at Home (1924)
- Laughing Ladies (1925)
literature
- Rainer Dick: Laurel & Hardy and the women. Foreword: Ottfried Fischer, specialist publisher for film literature Landshut 2015, ISBN 978-3-943127-05-8
- Sven Hanuschek: Laurel & Hardy. A revision. Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna 2010, ISBN 978-3-552-05506-3 .
Web links
- Literature by and about Oliver Hardy in the catalog of the German National Library
- Oliver Hardy in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- German Laurel and Hardy Museum
- Official website (English)
- The Artful Antics of Babe Hardy
Individual evidence
- ↑ Oliver Hardy - A fat girl called "Babe" . Welt Online , August 4, 2007
- ↑ Grave of Oliver Hardy. knerger.de
- ↑ Norbert Aping: The Dick and Doof Book . Schüren Verlag Marburg, 2004, p. 15
- ↑ The Artist's Model in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Terrible Kate in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ His Movie Mustache in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Bad Kate in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ This Is Not My Room in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Pipe Dreams and Prizes in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ The Perfect Lady in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Roaring Lions at Home in the Internet Movie Database (English)
- ↑ Laughing Ladies in the Internet Movie Database (English)
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Hardy, Oliver |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Hardy, Oliver Norvell |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American comedian and film actor |
| DATE OF BIRTH | January 18, 1892 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Harlem , Georgia, United States |
| DATE OF DEATH | 7th August 1957 |
| Place of death | Hollywood , California, United States |