[4] After finishing their film commitments at the end of 1944, they concentrated on performing stage shows, and embarked on a music hall tour of England, Ireland, Wales, and Scotland.

[7] His father, Arthur Joseph Jefferson, was a theatrical entrepreneur and theater owner in northern England and Scotland who, with his wife, was a major force in the industry.

Dressing room arguments were common between the two; it was reported that producer Joe Rock paid her to leave Laurel and to return to her native Australia.

[23] By his late teens, Hardy was a popular stage singer and he operated a movie house in Milledgeville, Georgia, the Palace Theater, financed in part by his mother.

[25] The nickname "Babe" originated from an Italian barber near the Lubin Studios in Jacksonville, Florida, who would rub Hardy's face with talcum powder and say "That's nice-a baby!"

For 10 years he memorably assisted star comic and Charlie Chaplin imitator Billy West, and appeared in the comedies of Jimmy Aubrey, Larry Semon, and Charley Chase.

"[33] Screenwriter, director and producer for Hal Roach Studios, Leo McCarey recounted a story on the NBC television program This Is Your Life on December 1, 1954 of how a leg of lamb brought Laurel and Hardy together.

[34][35][36] Babe (Oliver Hardy) was cooking a leg of lamb and for some reason he left his arm in the oven too long or something and he got it so badly blistered that we had to cut down his part in the next picture.

[39] The characters' normal attire called for wing collar shirts, with Hardy wearing a necktie which he would twiddle when he was particularly self-conscious; and Laurel, a bow tie.

Rather than showing Hardy suffering the pain of misfortunes, such as falling down stairs or being beaten by a thug, banging and crashing sound effects were often used so the audience could visualize the mayhem.

[45] When Hardy said the phrase, Laurel's frequent, iconic response was to start to cry, pull his hair up, exclaim "Well, I couldn't help it...", then whimper and speak gibberish.

[56] Also in 1927, the pair starred in The Battle of the Century, a classic pie-throwing short involving over 3,000 real pies; only a fragment of the film was known to exist until the first half resurfaced in the 1970s; a more complete print was discovered in 2015 by historian Jon Mirsalis.

[67] Laurel and Hardy are Christmas tree salesmen who are drawn into a classic tit-for-tat battle, with a character played by James Finlayson, that eventually destroys his house and their car.

Many silent-film actors failed to make the transition to "talkies"—some, because they felt sound was irrelevant to their craft of conveying stories with body language; and others, because their spoken voices were considered inadequate for the new medium.

[73] The Music Box (1932), with the pair delivering a piano up a long flight of steps,[74] won an Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Subject.

A satire of the Gene Autry musical westerns sweeping America at the time, the film combines Laurel and Hardy's slapstick routines with songs and dances performed by the stars.

[83] However, their working conditions were now completely different: they were simply hired actors, relegated to both studios’ B-film units, and not initially allowed to contribute to the scripts or improvise, as they had always done.

In 1947, Laurel and Hardy famously attended the reopening of the Dungeness loop of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, where they performed improvised routines with a steam locomotive for the benefit of local crowds and dignitaries.

Hardy's friend John Wayne hired him to co-star in The Fighting Kentuckian for Republic Pictures, and Bing Crosby got him a small part in Frank Capra's Riding High.

He quickly rewrote it, with screen comic Monte Collins contributing visual gags, and hired old friend Alfred Goulding to direct the Laurel and Hardy scenes.

[80] During filming, Hardy developed an irregular heartbeat, while Laurel experienced painful prostate complications that caused his weight to drop to 114 pounds.

Lured to the Knickerbocker Hotel under the pretense of a business meeting with producer Bernard Delfont, the doors opened to their suite, #205, flooding the room with light and Edwards' voice.

Partly due to the broadcast's positive response, the team began renegotiating with Hal Roach Jr. for a series of color NBC Television specials, to be called Laurel and Hardy's Fabulous Fables.

That year, they made their final public appearance together while taking part in This Is Music Hall, a BBC Television program about the Grand Order of Water Rats, a British variety organization.

[95] In 1956, while following his doctor's orders to improve his health due to a heart condition, Hardy lost over 100 pounds (45 kg; 7.1 st), but nonetheless suffered several strokes causing reduced mobility and speech.

"[111] Many critics and film scholars throughout the years have agreed with this assessment;[112] writers, artists, and performers as diverse as Samuel Beckett,[113] Jerry Lewis, Lucille Ball,[114] Peter Sellers, Marcel Marceau[115] Steve Martin, John Cleese,[116] Harold Pinter,[117] Alec Guinness,[118] J. D. Salinger,[119] René Magritte[120] and Kurt Vonnegut[119][121] among many others, have acknowledged an artistic debt.

For many years the duo were impersonated by Jim MacGeorge (as Laurel) and Chuck McCann (as Hardy) in children's TV shows and television commercials for various products.

Early efforts were the famous Laurel & Hardy films Helpmates, Way Out West, and The Music Box, which were released to television and issued on VHS videocassettes.

[126] Maurice Sendak showed three identical Oliver Hardy figures as bakers preparing cakes for the morning in his award-winning 1970 children's book In the Night Kitchen.

It includes many movie clips, rare and unpublished photographs, interviews with family, fans, friends, showbiz pals and newly recovered footage.