Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #71085 in Books
• Published on: 2002-09-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 528 pages

Synopsis
Laurel and Hardy can still reduce audiences to helpless laughter, as Simon Louvish attests in this chronicle of their lives and works.

Customer Reviews

Dancing to the Ku-Ku Song
By the time I was old enough to appreciate adult comedies shown on TV, i.e. in the late 50's, Oliver "Babe" Hardy was already dead (1957) and Stan Laurel was on the final downslope of his life. Yet, it was Laurel & Hardy, along with Abbott & Costello, that tickled my embryonic sense of humor before "graduating" to Red Skelton, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason.

Here, in STAN AND OLLIE: THE ROOTS OF COMEDY, author Simon Louvish draws from even more compulsively detailed books on the duo to yield a satisfyingly comprehensive overview of The Boys' professional lives, both solo and paired. I never thought of Stan and Ollie as being anything other than a team. Yet, the first eighteen chapters of this 40-chapter volume reveal that each had a successful career before being eternally cemented together in the 1927 silent movie, "Duck Soup". Each began life separated by the Atlantic, Stan being born in the north of England in 1890, and Oliver in Georgia of the American South in 1892. Before their fateful pairing by Hal Roach in Hollywood in 1927, Laurel worked his way up through the ranks of U.K. and U.S. vaudeville and U.S. film, while Hardy appeared in 200+ silents on his own beginning with "Outwitting Dad" (1914), a release coming from the then-booming Florida film industry. For both, it was a long and tortuous road to Tinseltown and destiny.

I need to stress that STAN AND OLLIE focuses on their professional lives. If you're looking for a detailed inside peek at their personal existences, look elsewhere. OK, sure, the reader learns, as narrative asides, that Ollie bet on the horses and Stan had a weakness for Yorkshire pudding, chocolate candies, and ocean sport fishing. Both enjoyed golf. And, moreover, both had rocky domestic lives with multiple, mostly failed marriages - Hardy totaling three wives in as many marriages, and Laurel amassing four wives in five marriages, plus one common-law relationship. But, I finished the narrative not really having a feel for the men behind their famous on-screen personae. This skewed exposition is exemplified by the choice of photos included in the text; there are virtually none of Stan and/or Ollie outside of stills from their screen roles. Weren't there pesky paparazzi in those days? There was one photo taken of Hardy towards the end of his life that I particularly wanted to see out of morbid curiosity. As Louvish describes it:

"In 1956 ... (Ollie) reduced his weight by 150 lbs ... The last photograph of Stan and Babe together, in 1956, shows a recognizable smiling Stan, but beside him stands a stranger, relatively trim, with flabby flesh replacing his double chins, thin silvery hair and a rictus of a smile."

My distinct impression was that, throughout the composition of STAN AND OLLIE, the author worked overtime to protect the image and memory of his heroes. That's fine, but it results in a somewhat one-dimensional piece, albeit otherwise excellent as far as it goes.

One rarely sees any of the old Laurel and Hardy movies on TV anymore. Maybe it's just because I don't stay up into the wee hours. STAN AND OLLIE compels me to re-visit their screen appearances on DVD rentals to remind myself of the laughter of childhood memory.

A hollow account
This book gave me some idea about the peaks and troughs in Laurel and Hardy's careers, but it felt a little hollow. Louvish does document Laurel and Hardy's lives, but the accounts always seem a bit thin on detail. Crucially, there is virtually no information on how they got on or what they thought of each other. Much of the book is taken up with descriptions of the films. All of this is tied together by the author's theories about the nature of "clowns" (by which he means comedians). I found these theories unconvincing and didn't really understand what he was driving at.

I also found that Louvish's style grated on me. He has a tendency to stress that his subjects accounts are biased and often follows this with questions to the reader. This seems unescessary. People's accounts are always partial and biased. It is the author's job to judge the credibility of the sources and to provide his own account. He also has a habit partially describing events and promising to finish them later. I found this frustrating as the details of the promised stories were often not exciting enough to warrant this approach.

On the positive side, this book did interest me enough to look for other accounts. It also contains comprehensive bibliographies and filmographies.

An enjoyable read
With depressing regularity, there continues to be biographies hitting the market that appear to be more interested in sensationally demolishing deceased heroes than actually give an insight into there lives. Happily, this is not one of them.
The author has clearly attempted to give an unbiased overview of both their lives. We are given an honest but respectful picture of two great comedians and two flawed but decent human beings. recommended to all fans.