Oliver Hardy
Birthday: 1892-01-18 Place of Birth: Harlem, Georgia, USA
Synopsis
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Oliver Norvell Hardy (born Norvell Hardy, January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1927 to 1951. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. He was credited with his first film, Outwitting Dad, in 1914. In some of his early works, he was billed as "Babe Hardy". Oliver Hardy died from cerebral thrombosis on August 7, 1957, at age 65. His star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame is located at 1500 Vine Street, Hollywood, California.
Acting
Fragments: Surviving Pieces of Lost Films
Among the pieces featured in Fragments are the final reel of John Ford's The Village Blacksmith (1922) and a glimpse at Emil Jannings in The Way of All Flesh (1927), the only Oscar®-winning performance in a lost film. Fragments also features clips from such lost films as Cleopatra (1917), starring Theda Bara; The Miracle Man (1919), with Lon Chaney; He Comes Up Smiling (1918), starring Douglas Fairbanks; an early lost sound film, Gold Diggers of Broadway (1929), filmed in early Technicolor, and the only color footage of silent star Clara Bow, Red Hair (1928). The program is rounded out with interviews of film preservationists involved in identifying and restoring these films. Also featured is a new interview with Diana Serra Cary, best known as "Baby Peggy", one of the major American child stars of the silent era, who discusses one of the featured fragments, Darling of New York (1923).
Laurel & Hardy: Their Lives and Magic
The lives of Stan Laurel (1890-1965) and Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), on the screen and behind the curtain. The joy and the sadness, the success and the failure. The story of one of the best comic duos of all time: a lesson on how to make people laugh.
A Tribute to Laurel & Hardy
Documentary about Laurel & Hardy
Chaplin's Goliath
A film about the tall actor who was most famous for playing the quintessential villain for Charlie Chaplin's Tramp character.
The Big Parade of Comedy
Film clips highlight the funniest scenes and brightest comic stars in MGM's history.
When Comedy Was King
A compilation featuring comedic stars of the silent era including Fatty Arbuckle, Charles Chaplin, Buster Keaton, Charley Chase, and Laurel and Hardy.
The Fighting Kentuckian
John Breen (John Wayne), a Kentucky militiaman falls in love with French exile Fleurette De Marchand (Vera Ralston). He discovers a plot to steal the land that Fleurette's exiles plan to settle on and aims to foil it.
The Bullfighters
Bumbling detective Stan Laurel disguises himself as a famous matador in order to hide from the vengeful Richard K. Muldoon, who spent time in prison on Stan's bogus testimony.
Nothing But Trouble
Two bumbling servants are hired by a dizzy society matron to cook and serve a meal to visiting royalty.
The Big Noise
During World War II Stan and Ollie find themselves as improbable bodyguards to an eccentric inventor and his strategically important new bomb.
The Dancing Masters
The Dancing Masters is a 1943 Laurel and Hardy feature film. The plot involves the team running a ballet school, and getting involved with an inventor. A young Robert Mitchum has an uncredited cameo role as a fraudulent insurance salesman.
Jitterbugs
The two-man Laurel and Hardy Zoot Suit Band find themselves fronting a scam for "gasolene pills" in wartime oil-short America. They are however soon on the side of the angels helping recover $10,000 for an attractive young lady whose family have themselves been swindled.
The Tree in a Test Tube
Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy are stopped by narrator Pete Smith for the purpose of showing the audience how much wood and wood by-products the average person carries.
A-Haunting We Will Go
Stan and Ollie get involved with con men, crooks, a genial magician, and two interchangeable coffins with disastrous but funny results.
A Chump at Oxford
The boys get jobs as a butler and maid-- Stan in drag-- for a dinner party. When that ends in disaster, they resort to sweeping streets and accidentally capture a bank robber. The grateful bank president sends them to Oxford, at their request, and higher-education hijinks ensue.
Zenobia
A modest country doctor in the antebellum South has to contend with his daughter's upcoming marriage and an affectionate medicine show elephant.
The Flying Deuces
Ollie falls in love with a woman. When he discovers she's already married, he unsuccessfully attempts suicide but he and Stan then decide to join the Foreign Legion to get away from their troubles. When they’re arrested for soon trying to desert the Legion—they escape a firing squad by stealing an aircraft.
Swiss Miss
Stan and Ollie are mousetrap salesmen hoping for better business in Switzerland, with Stan's theory that because there is more cheese in Switzerland, there should be more mice.
Block-Heads
It's 1938, but Stan doesn't know the war is over; he's still patrolling the trenches in France, and shoots down a French aviator. Oliver sees his old chum's picture in the paper and goes to visit Stan who has now been returned to the States and invites him back to his home.
Way Out West
Stan and Ollie try to deliver the deed to a valuable gold mine to the daughter of a dead prospector. Unfortunately, the daughter's evil guardian is determined to have the gold mine for himself and his saloon-singer wife.
The Bohemian Girl
Stan and Ollie travel with a band of 18th-century Gypsies holding a nobleman's daughter.
Our Relations
Two sailors get caught in a mountain of mix-ups when they meet their long-lost twins. Laurel and Hardy play themselves and their twins.
Bonnie Scotland
Stan and Ollie stow away to Scotland expecting to inherit the MacLaurel estate. When things don't quite turn out that way, they unwittingly enlist in the Scottish army and are posted to India.
Tit for Tat
Stan and Ollie have set up their own electrical appliance store but, unfortunately for them, the grocery right next door is run by the man and wife whom they encountered in "Them Thar Hills" (1935). Stan and Ollie go and visit to offer the hand of friendship, but the grocer again becomes convinced that Ollie and his wife are fooling around.
Going Bye-Bye!
In a packed courtroom, Butch Long vows revenge on 'squealers' Laurel and Hardy whose evidence has helped to send him to prison. Frightened, the boys plan to leave town and advertise for someone to share expenses with them. The woman who answers the ad is actually Butch's girlfriend. Meanwhile Butch escapes and hides in a trunk in his girlfriend's apartment where he gets locked inside. Not realizing who it is, Stan and Ollie finally manage to get the trunk open and then Butch exacts his revenge.
Hollywood Party
Jimmy Durante is jungle movie star Schnarzan the Conqueror, but the public is tiring of his fake lions. When Baron Munchausen comes to town with real man-eating lions, Durante throws him a big Hollywood star-studded party so that he might use the lions in his next movie. But, his film rival sneaks into the party to buy the lions before Durante.
Them Thar Hills
Stan and Ollie travel to the mountains for Ollie's health, and park their caravan near a well into which a gang of moonshiners have earlier dumped their moonshine; and the boys proceed to quench their thirst thinking that it is iron-rich mountain water. The real trouble doesn't begin, though, until a married motoring couple stop by to borrow some gasoline, and the already-cranky husband leaves his thirsty wife with the boys while he goes off to refill his car's empty gas-tank. A sequel was made to this film: TIT FOR TAT, q.v.
Babes in Toyland
Ollie Dee and Stannie Dum try to borrow money from their employer, the toymaker, to pay off the mortgage on Mother Peep's shoe and keep it and Little Bo Peep from the clutches of the evil Barnaby. When that fails, they trick Barnaby, enraging him.
Sons of the Desert
Ollie and Stan deceive their wives into thinking they are taking a medically necessary cruise when they are really going to a lodge convention.
Busy Bodies
In this short film, Laurel and Hardy wage battle with inanimate objects, their co-workers, and the laws of physics during a routine work day at a sawmill.
