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| A young and dapper Oliver Hardy |
Oliver Hardy was commonly known as "Babe", a nickname he claimed was given to him by an Italian barber who over enthused about his baby face. The name stuck and it was generally only onscreen that he was referred to as Ollie.
He was born Norvell Hardy on January 18 1892 in Harlem, Georgia. He added the name of his late father in his early teens and used it as his first name for the rest of his life.
His mother ran a small hotel and the young Hardy would often be found 'lobby watching' sat quietly watching guests going along with their business. Significant parts of his early life were his attendance at a military college and singing lessons, cinema and theatre also began to creep into his life. By the time he was 18, Hardy was managing a local cinema.
Watching the films on the (probably not so) big screen, Hardy thought he could do better and headed to Florida where part of the movie industry was. Working for Lubin Pictures, Hardy was cast as the 'heavy' in many films, he worked for 3 years in Florida and then moved to New York where he worked on Billy West comedies. West made films mimicking (or even copying) Chaplin and Babe was always the opposing heavy, West's films stopped in 1918 and with the end of those Hardy headed to California.
Oliver Hardy was a great comic actor, yet he often spoke as though he was just a helping hand, interviewed in 1954 by Laurel & Hardy biographer John McCabe, Hardy was surprised he was even being interviewed;
there's very little to say, Stan can fill you in on all the comedy stuff done in the pictures.. I didn't do very much outside of doing a lot of gags before a camera and play golf the rest of the time
"a lot of gags before a camera", amazingly modest when those gags were some of the most memorable in the history of cinema.
Hardy's career in Hollywood was a succession of playing the heavy against some of the leading comics of the day, most notably Larry Semon. Inevitably Hardy tried to shake off the heavy role yet it wasn't until he was teamed with Stan Laurel that he could finally do that. Always a big man Hardy made a lot of effort to move gently and elegantly.
The partnership and teaming of Stan & Ollie will appear in a future entry, as far as Hardy's solo work, when teamed with Stan from 1927, Hardy only worked with Stan, except for 3 movies.
In 1939 after a contract dispute with studio boss Hal Roach, Stan parted company with the studio but Hardy had time on his contract. By all accounts Roach tried to break up Laurel & Hardy by putting Roach in a film alongside fading comedy star Harry Langdon, Zenobia. Zenobia wasn't a great success, although it has some funny moments, audiences just wondered where Stan was.
After Laurel & Hardy had more or less finished making films (the ill fated Utopia was to come in 1951), Hardy made another two films. After forming a friendship with John Wayne doing some charity work, Hardy appeared alongside the Duke in his feature film The Fighting Kentuckian (1950). Hardy was given the chance to do some serious acting in this film and doing it well. He also had an hilarious cameo role in the Bing Crosby film Riding High, playing with type as a heavy gambler.
You can see some of that appearance below
Ten days before Laurel & Hardy were due to start filming a TV series (their first) in 1956, Oliver Hardy had a mild stroke, sadly there was a more serious stroke to come and for several months, he made vain attempts at recovery, ending with his death in August 1957.
Speaking of Babe's death, Stan commented "I hope wherever he is now that he realises how much people loved him".
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