[2] His father, Oliver, was a Confederate States Army veteran of the American Civil War who had been wounded at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, and was a recruiting officer for Company K, 16th Georgia Regiment.

In 1905, when he was 13, he was sent to Young Harris College in north Georgia for the fall semester which he completed successfully in January 1906, however he was in the junior high component of that institution what is today known as an academy.

[5] In 1910, The Palace,[3] a motion picture theater, opened in Hardy's hometown of Milledgeville, and he became the projectionist, ticket taker, janitor and manager.

He was a big man, standing 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) and weighing up to 300 pounds (c. 136 kg), and his size placed limits on the roles that he could play.

[7][8] In 1921, he appeared in the movie The Lucky Dog, produced by Broncho Billy Anderson and starring Stan Laurel.

That same year another former colleague, Billy West, recruited Hardy to appear opposite mild-mannered comic Bobby Ray in four slapstick comedies.

"[10] He continued to work in the Hal Roach comedies, like Yes, Yes, Nanette!, starring Jimmy Finlayson and directed by Stan Laurel.

)[11] He also continued playing supporting roles in films featuring Clyde Cook, including Wandering Papas (1925, directed by Laurel).

In 1927, Laurel and Hardy began sharing screen time together in Slipping Wives, Duck Soup (no relation to the 1933 Marx Brothers' film), and With Love and Hisses.

Roach Studios' supervising director Leo McCarey recognized the audience reaction to the two and began teaming them together, which led to the start of a Laurel and Hardy series later that year.

They began producing a huge body of short comedies, including The Battle of the Century (1927) (with one of the greatest pie fights ever filmed),[12] Should Married Men Go Home?

He made Zenobia with Harry Langdon in 1939 while waiting for a contractual issue to be resolved between Laurel and Hal Roach.

Eventually, however, new contracts were agreed upon and the team was lent to producer Boris Morros at General Service Studios to make The Flying Deuces (1939).

While on the lot, Hardy fell in love with Virginia Lucille Jones, a script girl whom he married the next year.

These studios produced films on a larger scale, and initially the comedians were hired only as actors in the B-picture division, forced to leave the writing and editing decisions to the production teams.

M-G-M's two-picture pact expired in August 1944, and Fox's series of six Laurel & Hardy pictures ended when the studio discontinued B-picture production in December 1944.

The tour was lengthened to include engagements in Scandinavia, Belgium, France, and a Royal Command Performance for King George VI and Queen Elizabeth.

Biographer John McCabe writes that they continued to make live appearances in the United Kingdom and France until 1954, often using new sketches and material that Laurel had written for them.

Hardy had previously worked with Wayne and John Ford in a charity production of the play What Price Glory?

[15] In addition, Laurel had to rewrite the script to make it fit the comedy team's style, and both suffered serious physical illness during the filming.

The pair contracted with Hal Roach Jr. to produce a series of TV shows based on the Mother Goose fables in 1955.

According to biographer John McCabe, they were to be filmed in color for NBC, but the series was postponed when Laurel had a stroke and required a lengthy convalescence.

[19][N 2] After he was cremated, his ashes were interred in the Masonic Garden of Valhalla Memorial Park Cemetery in North Hollywood.