Trivia: Actor, screenwriter, and producer Stan Laurel was born to British stage performers. He started acting on stage in his mid-teens in music halls and theaters before touring the U.S. in 1910 and 1912 as Charlie Chaplin's understudy. He remained in the States to perform in vaudeville and, in 1917, supplemented his stage work by appearing as clownish misfit types in comedy shorts often spoofing dramatic films of the period. One of these was a two-reeler called Lucky Dog (1918), in which he appeared totally by accident with Oliver Hardy. The two would not appear together again until 1926, when they both found themselves working for comedy producer Hal Roach. Laurel, who had been hired by Roach as a gagman/director, was persuaded to appear in front of the camera and, thus, auspiciously again with Hardy. It soon became obvious that the two men had a certain comic onscreen chemistry, and they ended up starring together as an incredibly popular comedy team in more fifty films in the 1930s and early '40s, with their 1932 three-reeler The Music Box winning an Oscar for Best Short Subject. Laurel, the creative member of the team, had numerous run-ins with producer Roach; the actor wanted the team's films to aspire to the higher quality productions of their contemporaries, while Roach was firmly content with maintaining a low-budget norm. Laurel had a few short-lived victories, serving as producer on the team's Our Relations (1936) and Way out West (1937). The team left Roach in 1940 to seek more artistic control over their work, but were given even less at Fox and MGM. In the late '40s and early '50s, they enjoyed touring English music halls while continuing to make films. After Hardy's death in 1957, Laurel stopped performing but kept active. He died from a heart attack in 1965.

Trivia: Unlike his future screen partner Stan Laurel, American comedian Oliver Hardy did not come from a show business family. His father was a lawyer who died when Hardy was ten; his mother was a hotel owner in both his native Georgia and in Florida. The young Hardy became fascinated with show business through the stories spun by the performers who stayed at his mother's hotel, and at age eight he ran away to join a minstrel troupe. Possessing a beautiful singing voice, Hardy studied music for a while, but quickly became bored with the regimen; the same boredom applied to his years at Georgia Military College (late in life, Hardy claimed to have briefly studied law at the University of Georgia, but chances are that he never got any farther than filling out an application). Heavy-set and athletic, Hardy seemed more interested in sports than in anything else; while still a teenager, he umpired local baseball games, putting on such an intuitively comic display of histrionics that he invariably reduced the fans to laughter. In 1910, he opened the first movie theater in Milledgeville, Georgia, and as a result became intrigued with the possibilities of film acting. Traveling to Jacksonville, Florida in 1913, he secured work at the Lubin Film Company, where thanks to his 250-pound frame he was often cast as a comic villain. From 1915-25, Hardy appeared in support of such comedians as Billy West (the famous Chaplin imitator), Jimmy Aubrey, Larry Semon (Hardy played the Tin Woodman in Semon's 1925 version of The Wizard of Oz), and Bobby Ray. An established "heavy" by 1926, Hardy signed with the Hal Roach studios, providing support to such headliners as Our Gang and Charley Chase. With the rest of the Roach stock company, Hardy appeared in the Comedy All-Stars series, where he was frequently directed by fellow Roach contractee Stan Laurel (with whom Hardy had briefly appeared on-screen in the independently produced 1918 two-reeler Lucky Dog). At this point, Laurel was more interested in writing and directing than performing, but was lured back before the cameras by a hefty salary increase. Almost inadvertently, Laurel began sharing screen time with Hardy in such All-Stars shorts as Slipping Wives (1927), Duck Soup (1927) and With Love and Hisses (1927). Roach's supervising director Leo McCarey, noticing how well the pair worked together, began teaming them deliberately, which led to the inauguration of the "Laurel and Hardy" series in late 1927. At first, the comedians indulged in the cliched fat-and-skinny routines, with Laurel the fall guy for the bullying Hardy. Gradually the comedians developed the multidimensional screen characters with which we're so familiar today. The corpulent Hardy was the pompous know-it-all, whose arrogance and stubbornness always got him in trouble; the frail Stan was the blank-faced man-child, whose carelessness and inability to grasp an intelligent thought prompted impatience from his partner. Underlining all this was the genuine affection the characters held for each other, emphasized by Hardy's courtly insistence upon introducing Stan as "my friend, Mr. Laurel." Gradually Hardy adopted the gestures and traits that rounded out the "Ollie" character: The tie-twiddle, the graceful panache with which he performed such simple tasks as ringing doorbells and signing hotel registers, and the "camera look," in which he stared directly at the camera in frustration or amazement over Laurel's stupidity. Fortunately Laurel and Hardy's voices matched their characters perfectly, so they were able to make a successful transition to sound, going on to greater popularity than before. Sound added even more ingredients to Hardy's comic repertoire, not the least of which were such catch-phrases as "Why don't you do something to help me?" and "Here's another nice mess you've gotten me into." Laurel and Hardy graduated from two-reelers to feature films with 1931's Pardon Us, though they continued to make features and shorts simultaneously until 1935. While Laurel preferred to burn the midnight oil as a writer and film editor, Hardy stopped performing each day at quitting time. He occupied his leisure time with his many hobbies, including cardplaying, cooking, gardening, and especially golf. The team nearly broke up in 1939, not because of any animosity between them but because of Stan's contract dispute with Hal Roach. While this was being settled, Hardy starred solo in Zenobia (1939), a pleasant but undistinguished comedy about a southern doctor who tends to a sick elephant. Laurel and Hardy reteamed in late 1939 for two more Roach features and for the Boris Morros/RKO production The Flying Deuces (1939). Leaving Roach in 1940, the team performed with the USO and the Hollywood Victory Caravan, then signed to make features at 20th Century-Fox and MGM. The resultant eight films, produced between 1941 and 1945, suffered from too much studio interference and too little creative input from Laurel and Hardy, and as such are but pale shadows of their best work at Roach. In 1947, the team was booked for the first of several music hall tours of Europe and the British Isles, which were resounding successes and drew gigantic crowds wherever Stan and Ollie went. Upon returning to the States, Hardy soloed again in a benefit stage production of What Price Glory directed by John Ford. In 1949, he played a substantial supporting role in The Fighting Kentuckian, which starred his friend John Wayne; as a favor to another friend, Bing Crosby, Hardy showed up in a comic cameo in 1950's Riding High. Back with Laurel, Hardy appeared in the French-made comedy Atoll K (1951), an unmitigated disaster that unfortunately brought the screen career of Laurel and Hardy to a close. After more music hall touring abroad, the team enjoyed a resurgence of popularity in the U.S. thanks to constant showings of their old movies on television. Laurel and Hardy were on the verge of starring in a series of TV comedy specials when Stan Laurel suffered a stroke. While he was convalescing, Hardy endured a heart attack, and was ordered by his doctor to lose a great deal of weight. In 1956, Hardy was felled a massive stroke that rendered him completely inactive; he held on, tended day and night by his wife Lucille, until he died in August of 1957. Ironically, Oliver Hardys passing occurred at the same time that he and Stan Laurel were being reassessed by fans and critics as the greatest comedy team of all time.

Trivia: Scottish comedian James Finlayson attended the University of Edinburgh with the intention of pursuing a business career. He was deflected by his best friend, stage actor Andy Clyde, who encouraged Finlayson to give theatre a try. After serving his apprenticeship in regional repertory, Finlayson was cast in the West End production of Bunty Pulls the Strings in 1912, a production which brought him to New York. He embarked on a vaudeville tour with Alec Lauder (brother of the more famous Sir Harry Lauder), then headed to Hollywood, working at the Ince and L-KO studios before settling at the Mack Sennett fun factory in 1919. While with Sennett, Finlayson developed his famous, apoplectic caricature of the old-fashioned "me proud beauty" Victorian villain.In 1923, Finlayson moved to Hal Roach, where he would spend the next 17 years as both a star comic and (more successfully) a supporting player. During his Roach years, Finlayson perfected his comic signature, the "double take and fade away": a reaction of surprise, followed by several turns of the head and an upraised eyebrow, capped with the expletive "Doh!" Legend has it that one of Finlayson's double-takes was so energetic that it caused him to crack his skull against a wall and lose consciousness! Though he worked with everyone on the Roach lot, Finlayson became most closely associated with Laurel and Hardy, co-starring with the team on 33 occasions between 1927 and 1940. Fin's most memorable films with L&H include Big Business (1929), Another Fine Mess (1930), Chickens Come Home (1931), Our Wife (1931), The Devil's Brother (1933) and, best of all, Way Out West (1937), wherein as western saloon keeper Mickey Finn, Finlayson outdoes himself with his own hilarious brand of double-dyed villainy. He also appeared frequently with another team, Clark and McCullough, over at RKO. While some of Finlayson's feature-film roles were sizeable, notably his assignments in Dawn Patrol (1930) and All Over Town (1937), he was most often seen in unbilled bits, sometimes (as in the 1938 Astaire-Rogers vehicle Carefree) minus his trademarked paintbrush moustache. Because of his long associations with Sennett and Roach, James Finlayson was frequently called upon to appear in nostalgic recreations of Hollywood's silent era, notably Hollywood Cavalcade (1939) and The Perils of Pauline (1947).

Trivia: One of the most successful and busiest of Hollywood's "gorilla men," Charles Gemora appeared in almost three-dozen feature films between the 1920s and the 1950s, in addition to work as a makeup artist on more movies and television shows. Born in the Philippines in 1903, he stowed away as a young man on an American ship to get to the United States. He reached Southern California in the midst of the silent movie boom, and put his talent as an artist to work, picking up work doing portraits while hanging around the entrance to the Universal lot. He was soon hired by the art department and was part of the crew of artists and designers who worked on the studio's gargantuan production of The Phantom of the Opera (1925). He began creating gorilla suits for use in movies, and it soon dawned on him that with his natural ability as a mime, and his relatively short stature, he could just as easily use the suits on camera as construct them. Gemora would spend almost three decades honing his realistic performance and leading the evolution of suit effects. He made three on-screen appeareances as a gorilla in 1928, in The Leopard Lady, The Circus Kid, and Do Gentlemen Snore?, and from there on busy in this unique brand of acting craft over the next few years. He was seen in the Laurel & Hardy film The Chimp and the Bela Lugosi horror vehicle Murders in the Rue Morgue (both 1932), among other films, though he is probably most familiar for two appearances at opposite ends of the decade: as the gorilla in the 1930 Little Rascals/Our Gang short Bear Shooters (where, as a man in a gorilla suit, he is unmasked at one point); and, in a memorably comic and, indeed, slightly touching portrayal, as the gorilla in the Laurel & Hardy feature film Swiss Miss (1938). Gemora later moved from Universal to Paramount, where he worked for most of the last decade of his career. In later years, Gemora varied his portrayals, both in the personality he brought to his characters and the characters themselves. He most often, of course, played gorillas, but he also occasionally abandoned the suit -- and simian roles -- entirely. Most notably, in War of the Worlds (1953), he played the martian who confronts Gene Barry and Ann Robinson in the wreckage of the house, in what is probably the tensest and most memorable scene in the movie. And he got to work in 3D in Phantom of the Rue Morgue (1953), a remake of Murders in the Rue Morgue. The latter marked his last appearance in a gorilla suit, and in I Married a Monster From Outer Space (1958), he was once more playing an alien invader. Sad to say, in a career that had him working with Laurel & Hardy, Abbott & Costello, Bob Hope and Bing Crosby, and the Marx Brothers, Gemora hardly ever received any on-screen credit. His gorillas, however, are generally regarded as among the most realistic in movies, a result of Gemora's practice of studying their mannerisms and characteristics as seen in zoos and translating them into performance. For all of his skills in the gorilla suit, Gemora was also a highly talented makeup artist, with extensive credits in that area, and not just dealing with simian themes. His last screen credit was for the fantasy film Jack the Giant Killer (1962), and he also worked on The Four Skulls of Jonathan Drake (1959), as well as the Cecil B. DeMille productions The Ten Commandments (1956) and Unconquered (1947). Additionally, he was credited as a makeup artist on "The Time Element," the 1958 Westinghouse Desilu Playhouse installment that was the basis for The Twilight Zone.

Trivia: Tall, rotund, popular comedic supporting actor Billy Gilbert is best remembered for his ability to sneeze on cue. The son of opera singers, he was 12 when he started performing. Later, in vaudeville and burlesque, he perfected a suspenseful sneezing routine; this became his trademark as a screen actor (he provided the voice of "Sneezy," one of the Seven Dwarfs, in Disney's feature cartoon Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, [1938]). Gilbert appeared in some silent films, then began a busier screen career during the sound era, eventually appearing in some 200 feature films and shorts where he was usually cast in light character roles as comic relief to straight performers and as support for major comedians, notably Laurel and Hardy. He also frequently had accented roles, including Field Marshall Herring in Chaplin's The Great Dictator (1940). In the late '40s, Gilbert directed two Broadway shows; he also wrote a play, Buttrio Square, which was produced in New York in 1952. Billy Gilbert rarely appeared in films after the early '50s.

Trivia: One of the many pretty girls decorating Hal Roach two-reel comedies in the early sound era, blonde, blue-eyed Dorothy Layton (born Wannenwetch) earned bit parts in a couple of feature films as well, including Laurel and Hardy's Pack Up Your Troubles (1932), in which she was one of the bridesmaids. She was elected a WAMPAS Baby Star in 1934, the final year of that once popular contest, but by then her brief screen career was over. She later became a recreational director at a resort near Baltimore, MD.

Trivia: Winsome brunette leading lady Martha Sleeper was 17 when she was signed by Hal Roach Studios in 1925. Sleeper was tried out as a member of Our Gang in Better Movies (1925), but she was obviously too mature -- and too well-developed -- to continue appearing in Roach's "kiddie comedies." She went on to play opposite most of Roach's top comedians, most notably in a series of amusing domestic farces starring Charley Chase. She left Roach to appear in feature films in 1928, and the following year made her Broadway debut in Stepping Out. Closing out her film career in 1935, she established a solid reputation as a stage actress: Her theatrical credits included Dinner at Eight, Russet Mantel, and Christopher Blake. In 1945, she was coaxed back before the cameras by her onetime Hal Roach colleague Leo McCarey to play a small but crucial role in McCarey's The Bells of St. Mary's (1945). After retiring from show business, she became a successful costume designer. In later years, Martha Sleeper managed a boutique in Charleston, SC, where she'd settled with her third husband, a high-ranking military officer (her first husband was actor Hardie Albright).