Stan and Ollie Bio's
 

Oliver Norvell Hardy

Oliver Norvell Hardy was born on January 18, 1892 in Harlem Georgia.  He was named after his father Oliver Hardy and took his mothers name Norvell.  He had three brothers and two sisters.  His mother owned a hotel.  He like to sit and study the people who came to his mothers hotel. His parents were of English and Scottish descent.Unlike Laurels family there were no traces of acting anywhere in his history.
      However his whole family loved to sing.  Oliver inherited a beautiful voice.  At the age o feight he would skip school to sing proffesionally with a ministrerialschool.  During his youth he acquired the nickname which would stay with him his whole life.  He would get his hair cut at an italian barber shop and he would always say nice e' babe'.  His friends began to call him baby.  Later it was cut down to Babe.  After a series of events in his life containing a singing career he decided to give acting a try.  He had been suggested to try it numerous times.  In 1913 he got a chance.  He joined Lubins company to produce his first film,  The Paperhangers Helper.  Which came in 1915.  Babe also used to play in some films as the heavy.  That is what they called the heavy person in those days.
      Stan Laurel was invited to do a two reeler called Nuts 'n May.  It convinced him that his future lay in acting.  Stardom came quickly for Laurel.  Stan loved to write.  He was asked by Hal Roach to write a script for a james Finlayson icutre which he will work with in a few of their later films.  One day Babe was going to make a film with one of the people in the Hal Roach Studios.  Monday they were going to start filming. Sunday the day before Babe scolted his arm while he was trying to hurry up a leg of lamb.  They needed a replacement.  They coudn't find anybody.  Finally they went and asked Stan Laurel.  He said yes.  As soon as Hal Roach saw those two together he knew that was the team he wanted.  Oliver Norvell Hardy Died on August 7, 1957.
 
 

Stan Laurel

(June 16, 1890 - February 23, 1965)

      Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson on  June 16, 1890 in the town of Ulverston, Lancashire, England.  His father embraced writing, acing, and managing theaters as a career in the late 1800's, and Stanley had a desire to go on stage ever since childhood.  His ultimate goal at the time was to achieve success as a comedian in the music halls.   As soon as he was finished with his cursory education, which he attained mostly from the King James Grammar School in Bishop Auckland, Stan made his debut at Pickard's Museum which was a small Glasgow theater.  He was just sixteen at the time. Lupino Lane, slightly ahead of Laurel in his rise to fame, was one of his contemporaries on the boards at this time,  and Lane too, though his greatest fame would be on the London stage, would eventually become a popular Hollywood comedian of the 1920's.  Eventually Laurel joined Fred Karno's famous theatrical troup and after two or three years, the troup came to America in 1910.  Karno's best-loved routine was "Mumming Birds,"  or  "A Night in an English Music Hall"  The troup continued on wth Laurel all over America.  By now Laurel was an accomplished pantomimist and he had no trouble working up other comedy acts and touring the popular American vaudeville houses.  It was during this period, infact, that he changed his show business name to Stan Laurel, and while performing a comedy routine in 1917, he was noticed by a small independent producer and was invited to make a film.  A comedy two-reeler, Nuts in may,  was the result of his efforts,  and it was funny enough to convince Laurel that his future lay in film.  Stardom came fairly rapidly,  though front-rank stardom was still almost a decade away, awaiting his fortuitous teaming with Oliver Hardy.