Trivia

When Oliver Hardy died, Stan swore he would never perform comedy again. Over the next eight years, he repeatedly turned down a number of offers to do public appearances.

On February 23, 1965, Laurel told his nurse he wouldn't mind going skiing right at that very moment. Somewhat taken aback, the nurse replied that she didn't know he was a skier. "I'm not," said Stan, "I'd rather be doing that than have all these needles stuck into me!" A few minutes later, the nurse looked in on him again and found that Stan had quietly passed away.

In his later years, he was arguably the most approachable of all movie stars, keeping his phone number in the phone book, welcoming all sorts of visitors, and responding to his fan mail personally.

His light blue eyes almost ended his movie career before it began. Until the early 1920s, filmmakers used black-and-white Orthochromatic film stock, which was "blue blind". Hal Roach cameraman George Stevens (who later become an acclaimed producer/director) knew of panchromatic film and was able to get a supply of it from Chicago. This new film was sensitive to blue and recorded Laurel's pale blue eyes in a more natural way. Stevens became Laurel's cameraman on his short films at Roach Studios. When Laurel teamed with Oliver Hardy, they made Stevens their cameraman of choice.

When Stan Laurel died, Buster Keaton said 'Forget Chaplin. Stan was the greatest'.

According to his friends, he never fully recovered from Oliver Hardy's death.

While rarely credited as a writer or director, he was the driving creative force behind the team of Laurel and Hardy. Whenever Oliver Hardy was asked a question about a gag, story idea, or plot line, he always pointed to Laurel and said, "Ask Stan." Laurel often worked well into the night, writing and editing their films.

At the time of Oliver Hardy's death in 1957, Stan was too ill to attend his late partner's funeral.

In his later years, he was a close friends with Dick Van Dyke. Dick delivered the eulogy at Stan's funeral.

Hal Roach Studio was smaller than the majors, the indoor sets were relatively close to each other, and the actors often visited other sets between takes. Matthew 'Stymie' Beard picked up Stan's Irish children's derby hat and wore it whenever Stan put it down. Stan eventually gave Stymie a hat, which became Stymie's trademark.

Stan's famous hairstyle was created by accident. He and Oliver Hardy had shaved their heads to play convicts in The Second 100 Years (1927). His hair grew back very unevenly and refused to stay down. Others on the Roach lot laughed, so Stan began to cultivate the new look. Offscreen, he combed it straight back, as did Hardy.

He always thought that his "whining face" was humiliating. The public loved it, so the producers forced him to do it in most of his movies.

Stan removed the heels from his shoes while filming. It helped him accent his already humorous walk.

He had two children with his first wife, Lois: a daughter Lois Laurel (1927-2017); and a son, Stanley Robert (May 7, 1930-May 16, 1930), who was born two months prematurely.

Jerry Lewis was a big fan. When Lewis had his own production company in the early 1960s, he repeatedly tried to hire Stan for his creative team. Stan refused, despite the impressive salary. According to Lewis, he would send scripts to Stan, who would read them and write suggestions in the margins.

Abbott and Costello weren't getting what they wanted from the scriptwriters at Universal so would take the scripts to Stan for the three of them to work on together.

Laurel first appeared with his future partner, Oliver Hardy, in The Lucky Dog (1921), which was filmed in 1919 and released in 1921.

He is often thought of as being very short and skinny. He was actually around normal height (about 5' 8") and weight. Next to his partner, Oliver Hardy, who was about six feet tall and nearly double Stan's body weight, Stan appeared to be rather short and skinny by comparison.

When Stan's daughter, Lois, was little, she hated Oliver Hardy because she always saw him bullying her father in their films. It persuaded Stan to incorporate a revenge scene in One Good Turn (1931).

Outside of filming, Stan's interests were fishing, raising ducks, and hydroponic gardening (growing plants in chemical solutions rather than soil). He once cross-bred a potato and an onion, but couldn't get anyone to sample the results.

He was a heavy smoker until he suddenly gave up when he was about 70.

Appears on sleeve of The Beatles' album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band".

In Spain, Stan and Ollie were known as El Gordo y El Flaco.

Oliver Hardy was an inveterate golfer, often setting up a little putting green on the set so he could practice between takes. Laurel once joked to a reporter interviewing him that golf was Hardy's only "bad habit". When the reporter asked if he had any bad habits, Laurel, who had been married and divorced five times, replied, "Yes, and I married them.".

Peter Sellers claimed that the "Laurel" character was his inspiration for the "gardener" character in Being There (1979).

Laurel insisted that the quote attributed to him, "You know my hobbies; I married them all." was actually dreamed up by the publicity department.

Stan was instrumental in Marcel Marceau's career. After seeing Marceau perform in Paris in 1950, Stan praised him as an unsung genius and helped him gain attention in the French press.

Suffered a stroke in June 1955.

Matthew Cottle portrays him in Chaplin (1992).

Stan and Ollie believed that they got most of their laughs by combining dumbness with dignity making the audience feel that they were superior to them.

Interred at Forest Lawn (Hollywood Hills), Los Angeles, California, USA.

He and Charles Chaplin went to America in 1910 on a cattle boat and on arrival they shared a room in a boarding house.

His will signed in 1947 showed he had an estate worth $55,062.

Entertainment Weekly voted him and comedy partner Oliver Hardy the 45th Greatest Movie Star of all time.

Subject on one of five 29¢ US commemorative postage stamps celebrating famous comedians, issued in booklet form 29 August 1991. He is shown with his partner Oliver Hardy. The stamp designs were drawn by caricaturist Al Hirschfeld. The other comedians honored in the set are Edgar Bergen (with alter ego Charlie McCarthy); Jack Benny; Fanny Brice; and Bud Abbott and Lou Costello.

Had said that out of all the impersonations done of him, he liked actor Dick Van Dyke's the best. Van Dyke even got to perform that impersonation on one of the episodes of The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961) and after it premiered, he called Laurel to ask his opinion. Laurel said he liked everything but one detail, the hat wasn't right. Van Dyke said he found Laurel's number in a Santa Monica, California phone book.

Ray Bradbury, best known for his science fiction films, was a big fan of Stan and Oliver Hardy, attending Sons meetings when he could. He wrote a number of short stories about them including: The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair, The Laurel and Hardy Alpha Centauri Farewell Tour, and Another Fine Mess, which was set on the Music Box Steps.

In Italy, Laurel and Hardy are known as "Stanlio e Ollio".

One of Stan's favorite practical jokes was a trick toilet built into the bathroom of one of his homes. When flushed, the toilet sank into the floor.

Jim Plunkett portrays him in Harlow (1965).

His brother Edward Jefferson appeared in small roles in Laurel's early films.

When Stan wiggled his ears in films, he would be filmed with his ears as normal, then they would be held forward with putty or similar material and the camera restarted. The two sections would be joined together, then copied and joined many times for repetition. Filmed in slow motion then projected at normal speed, the ears would wave vigorously. That's why Stan's face is fixed in one position for a relatively long time. This wasn't a new technique for it had been discovered in 1896 by Georges Melies.

Charlotte Mae Dahlberg was part of a double act with Stan, and claimed that she gave Stan his surname. She was supposedly looking through a book and saw a picture of a Roman general with a laurel wreath on his head. Stan was superstitious, and his name had 13 letters in it, so he was more than happy to take up her suggestion of adopting the name of Laurel.

He was a huge fan of westerns. After he became a success, his company, Stan Laurel Productions, financed a series of low-budget musical westerns starring singing cowboy Fred Scott. The films were made for and released by the independent Spectrum Pictures rather than Hal Roach Studios, which made Laurel's and Oliver Hardy's films, or MGM, which released them. The Scott westerns seldom, if ever, made any money, but Laurel's enthusiasm for them never waned. When his accountants showed him that they were getting to be a major drain on his finances, he reluctantly dropped them.

According to Movie Mirror (1933) Oliver Hardy bought the rights to their signature tune 'Cuckoo' from composer Marvin Hatley for $25. Stan said he thought it funny'.

Jerry Lewis once offered Stan $100,000 to write for him on a part-time basis. Stan turned him down.

He was educated at Bishop Auckland Grammar School (where he was often in the staff room entertaining the teachers), Gainford Academy (outside Darlington), and Queens Park Secondary School, Glasgow (New Victoria Infirmary now stands on the site).

The English manor-style home at 718 Bedford Dr. in Beverly Hills where he lived in the early 1930s is shown in Hollywood Mouth (2008).

When asked why he had his name and number in the telephone directory he's reputed to have said that "How would people find me if I didn't?" At the apartment block where he lived in later years, he even went down to the lobby to collect his mail rather than phone down and ask for it to be taken up to him.

In Germany, Stan and Ollie were known as Dick und Doof.