The most popular comedy duo in cinema also shared a movie about love life. We review their experiences just before the premiere of the film in which John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan play them.
They were the most famous comedy duo in Hollywood, references to slapstick cinema, and inspiration for several generations of comedians. The film El Gordo y el Flaco, starring John C. Reilly and Steve Coogan, nostalgically vindicates the legacy of these two icons, who, from the late 1920s to their decline in the 1950s, appeared in more than 100 films and short films. The biopic that opens this weekend, inspired by AJ Marriot's book, Laurel and Hardy: The British Tours (1993), focuses on their last years on stage when Laurel and Hardy embarked on what would become their tour farewell to the United Kingdom and they did so accompanied by their respective wives.
In Jon S. Baird's endearing film, Laurel (Skinny) is described as the creative brain of the tandem, a workaholic, as ambitious as his wife, the Russian Ida Laurel –played by Nina Arianda– a dancer, somewhat melodramatic and extravagant, with a thick accent, who encouraged her husband to keep going, taking advantage of every opportunity that could be offered. Ida actually hid a vulnerable point, since, according to her, what attracted her to the comedian was her loneliness. In the case of Hardy (el Gordo), as he always had pain in his legs due to his overweight problems (aggravated in the 50s, when he reached 180 kilos), his wife Lucille Hardy (Shirley Henderson), is painted restless but inexpressive, without losing her temper, always interested in her health, but in a carefree way (she joked calling him by one of his nicknames, "babe" because he looked like a giant baby), without hindering her husband's decision to continue or not with the show.
With very different characters, Ida and Lucille did share a blind faith in their spouses, whom they scolded almost as mothers, advised as if they were their managers, and protected as if they were their equals. Strong and intelligent, they seemed to make the perfect team. But not everything was smooth sailing professionally and personally for these two legends of humor. In their escalation to success and until they got to know their better half, the popular Laurel and Hardy suffered a sentimental ordeal, with stormy relationships, fraught with jealousy, infidelity, and alcohol problems, which led them to divorce on several occasions. The lesser-known image of the always affable comedians.
Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel Early Years: Infidelities and a Bribe
Oliver Hardy (1892-1957), the Fat One, was born in Georgia (United States) into a divorced family: her father Oliver married her mother, Emily, a third time, who was a widow (her second marriage ). With no family history, Hardy was drawn to film after working as a projectionist.
Stan Laurel (1890-1965), the Skinny, was born in Lancashire (United Kingdom) into a family of theater people. He made his debut at the age of 16 and joined a tour of the United States in a company where a young Charles Chaplin worked, whom he was in charge of replacing.
In 1913, at the age of 21, Hardy married Madelyn Saloshin, who, with the same artistic concerns as him, earned her living playing the piano. Hardy worked by day at the Lubin studios and by night, as a cabaret singer, which led the apparent good-natured (although he always played the villain in short films due to his bulk: he was 1.90 meters tall) to flirt with any woman who met him. crosses him ahead. Madelyn fed up with her infidelities, asked for a divorce seven years later. During his first marriage, Hardy came to live in New York and Los Angeles, where in 1918 he met Stan Laurel.
For his part, Laurel met Australian Mae Dahlberg in 1919, another woman with artistic aspirations. What's more, it was Mae herself who named him Stan Laurel (actually, his name was Arthur Stanley Jefferson). The couple performed in theaters performing scripts written by Laurel. Six years later, in 1925, a studio offered Laurel to shoot a series of films, but without his partner. Fearing that she would get in her way, producer Joe Rock resorted to bribery to remove the potential obstacle: he paid her a boat ticket to Australia and a large sum of money, which she accepted on the spur of the moment. Laurel managed to enter the world of cinema but at the cost of losing the woman who had created his identity.
Alcoholism and the Tragedy of Oliver Hardy and Stan Laurel
The same year that Hardy divorced (1921), and, without taking a break, he married the actress Myrtle Reeves. But that second marriage did not last long, this time because of her addiction to her bottle. Something would have to do with the comedian, because, after the separation from him, Reeves raised his head, continued shooting movies, and died in 1983 at the age of 86. If things were not going well at home, professionally they were years of success and fame. In 1927, Hardy and Laurel began working together, albeit independently and went on to win an Oscar for the short The Music Box (1932), closing the year with a successful tour of Europe.
Laurel, for his part, also married an actress, Lois Neilson, in 1926, just a year after his ex boarded a ship headed for the Antipodes. With Lois, he had his daughter Lois and Stanley, who was born prematurely and died in 1930. His death destroyed the marriage and they separated in 1934, just when Laurel had shot with Hardy, Partymates, considered his best film. Lois Neilson lived to be 94 years old, dying of natural causes, and her daughter Lois passed away in 2017, at the age of 89. At the time he divorced Lois, Mae returned from Australia to sue him for child support, a matter that was settled out of court.
Bigamy? and attempted murder
A pianist, an actress, and… a script. Without leaving the set, El Gordo met what would be his third and last wife, Virginia Lucille Jones during the filming of the film Locos del aire (1939) and with whom he would be until the end of his days.
However, Laurel is the one who stars in the worst possible soap opera, perhaps because of his fear of being left alone. A year after Lois's divorce, in 1935, Laurel married Virginia Ruth Rogers, whom he divorced two years later for failing to get over Lois. In 1938, he married Illeana Shuvalova, prompting Ruth to call him a bigamist, which is completely untrue. To make matters worse, Illeana accused the actor of trying to bury her alive. After Illeana's divorce in 1940, a tad! Laurel remarried Ruth. Although they married a second time, the marriage did not last and they divorced in 1946, the year in which he would remarry Ida Kitaeva, with whom he was until her death.
His women to the end
During the UK tour narrated in the film, Hardy, 61, had a heart attack. Laurel, for his part, suffered a mild stroke in 1955, at age 65. In 1956, Gordo took his diet seriously and dropped to 95 kilos. Paradoxically, the fact that his friends and, above all, his fans did not recognize him because of his new physique caused the actor to fall into depression, which led him to lock himself at home with his wife. Lucille. What domino effect, in less than a year, Hardy suffered a stroke that left him immobilized and unable to articulate a word. And he lost a lot of weight again (he reached 55) after being diagnosed with cancer. Lucille cared for him until she died in 1957, aged 65.
Laurel, who was unable to attend the funeral due to a medical prescription, did not get over the death of his colleague and refused to work on any other project. In 1961, he was given an honorary Oscar, which he did not collect due to his delicate state of health. In 1962 he suffered a hemorrhage in one eye and two years later, cancer of the palate. Lauren died of a heart attack at age 74, a decade after her friend. His women survived them by many years: Ida died at 81 (in 1980) and Lucille, who would remarry a businessman, at 77 (in 1986).
