Arthur Stanley Jefferson was born on June 16, 1890, in the home of his grandparents in Ulverston, England. His father, A.J, was the manager of several local theaters and his mother, Madge, who had four other children, was an actress. Stan’s education began at the age of six when he left his grandfather’s home and moved in with his father. Even as a child, he was drawn to the theater and set up one of his very own in the attic of his home, featuring neighborhood children as cast members. He attended several local schools, and after finishing, secured a job in the box office of the Metropole Theater, which was managed by his father.
Comic acting greatly appealed to him and at age 16, he “tried out” a comedy act in the theater of E. Pickard. The good response encouraged him to continue, and in 1907, he joined a group known as the Fred Karno traveling players. He soon became the understudy to Charlie Chaplin, who was the group’s star performer. In 1910 and 1913, the group traveled to the United States but eventually broke up. Stan drifted into the world of vaudeville where from 1916 to 1918 he teamed up with Alice and Baldwin Cooke, who would become life-long friends. In 1917, he was cast in “Nuts In May” and decided to make the US his home.
Around 1918, he met Mae Dahlberg who had worked with him in vaudeville and changed his name to Stan Laurel. They had a common law marriage from 1918 to 1925. He married four times, twice to the same woman (Virginia Ruth Rogers). In 1924, he joined the Hal Roach Studios as a writer and director.
The first screen encounter with Oliver Hardy was in the film, “The Lucky Dog” in 1912. The first film they did for the Hal Roach Studios was “Forty Five Minutes From Hollywood” in 1926. However, the true birth of the Laurel and Hardy relationship that would last 3 decades did not occur until 1927 in their first official film as a duo, “The Second Hundred Years.”
The two men became the best of friends. In 1927, Stan’s daughter, Lois, was born and in 1929 the team of Laurel and Hardy made their first talking picture, “Unaccustomed As We Are.” Another child was born, but died and Stan distracted himself from his grief by making another film, “Pardon Us.” In December of 1931, he made one of his best films, “The Music Box,” for which he won an Oscar for “Best Comedy Short Subject” in 1932.
His health began to decline in 1939 when he contracted diabetes. Oliver Hardy died in August of 1957, and because of a debilitating stroke, Laurel was too weak to attend his friend’s funeral. He was devastated by Hardy’s death and never recovered from the loss of his friend.
In 1961, he won a Lifetime Achievement Academy Award, and during his career appeared in almost 190 films. He died from a heart attack on February 23, 1965. Even about his own death, he made a joke by saying, “if anyone at my funeral has a long face, I’ll never speak to him again!”
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