Partnership Dissolved

Southland Times, Issue 25302, 4 June 1935, Page 5

Partnership Dissolved

Aa wait briefly announced recently tho famous comedy team of Laurel ana Hardy has dissolved partnership. This is after delighting hundreds of thousands of people, and making £250,000 in five years. And it ,is Laurel’s contract which will not be renewed by Hal Roach, for whom the two have worked for so long. Stan Laurel, the great pantomime artist, one of the funniest people the screen has ever seen, will go, but Hardy—fat, good-humoured Oliver Hardy—will remain. Laurel says there has been trouble about the terms of his contract, but he is surprised that Hal Roach terminated it. » Two years ago he was earning £5OO a week, and he is thrifty. He has a paid-up insurance which will bring in £25 a week for life. This is apart from his Hollywood home and any other investments he may have made. An Accidental Partnership. Laurel and Hardy teamed up by accident. Laurel had been ambitious; he would become another Chaplin. But at the time he met Hardy in Hollywood he had left this ambition behind him and was writing jokes for other people to work oft. Hardy was making tworeel slapstick comedies when one day he hurt his arm and Laurel filled the role for him. The studio decided that Laurel was funny; he was retained in the picture, and one scene brought the two comedians together. So it began. And it went on for 18 years. Laurel is a versatile man, from him came the ideas, and he invented nearly all the gags used by the team in their screen comedies.