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Stuff: Family museum honours classic comics

Postby Bruce Calvert » Tue Sep 15, 2009 9:26 am

http://www.stuff.co.nz/travel/internati ... sic-comics

Family museum honours classic comics
By DIANA PLATER - AAP
Last updated 08:38 15/09/2009

OLD TYME LAUGHS: The Laurel and Hardy Museum in Ulverston, Britain.

This is a story about how the mayor of Ulverston so loved comedy duo Laurel and Hardy that he created a museum.

From humble beginnings in his basement more than 50 years ago the Laurel and Hardy Museum has become a family business in the art deco Roxy Theatre in the centre of the historic market town.

Although ridiculed - because you're not really meant to honour comedians, especially ones that appear childish - mayor Bill Cubin took no notice as his collection of memorabilia grew and grew.

People came to see the collection, and eventually a museum was opened in 1983.

Cubin died in 1997, but his family - particularly his daughter and grandsons - continued the business.

His grandson, Mark Greenhow, who was raised to the soundtrack from the movies made by Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, proudly tells me donations from the fan club enabled a £60,000 statue of the comedy duo with their lucky dog, to be built outside the town's exhibition hall.

It took more than 20 years to raise the money.

The move into the new museum in April coincided with the unveiling of the statue.

Ulverston's claim to fame is that Stan Laurel was born Arthur Stanley Jefferson on June 16, 1890 in the town in his grandparents' house - a small terrace called Foundry Cottages, the name later changed to Argyll Street.

The second of five children to theatre owner Arthur Jefferson and actress Margaret Jefferson (nee Metcalf), his family moved to Glasgow, Scotland in 1901.

"It's been a battle at times,'' Greenhow says of the museum's history.

"In the old days (the town) was very industrial and serious... granddad took a lot of flak - people saying 'we don't want anything to do with Laurel and Hardy'.

"These were pre-Star War days, it was unique to collect things. He picked them up whenever he saw them and much was donated to him.''

But although Stan Laurel came to Ulverston for a visit in 1947, Cubin was in the RAF at the time and missed him, and so never met his hero.

Laurel and his American partner Oliver Hardy never appeared on stage in Ulverston, Greenhow says, although the pair did do a theatre tour of England.

Their appeal was their ''timeless, non offensive, slapstick humour'', he says.

"I genuinely still do laugh whenever I hear them,'' he says commenting on the museum's small television which continually runs their movies.

Laurel's father worked in Glasgow's Metropole Theatre but didn't want his son to go into the acting side of the business.

"Stan was having none of it,'' Greenhow says.

When he was 16, Stan managed to get a tryout at his father's rival theatre, Pickard's Panopticon.

His father saw him from the back of the hall and dragged him out of the theatre. Later though he poured his son a whiskey and said, "Well done''.

Laurel joined Fred Karnos' travelling performers (known to some as Fred Karnos Barmy army) as a bit player and was eventually understudy to Charlie Chaplin.

In 1910, after successful tours all over Britain, the troupe went - like Chaplin - to Hollywood looking for fame.

Eventually Laurel - also a writer and director - was teamed with Hardy, and the duo formed a strong bond on and off screen.

Their films and comedy however were never overtly political like Chaplin's.

"He just wanted to make people laugh,'' Greenhow says of Laurel, although the duo were characterised as downtrodden in many of their films set in the Great Depression.

Hardy was also a great singer and could hit a high C, while Laurel had ''bright red hair and bright blue eyes'', a surprise after growing up seeing the black and white films that were never colourised.

The duo became known for their slapstick routines, deceptively simple dialogue and plots.

The childlike and innocent Laurel was always in trouble with pompous Ollie, exasperated with the friend that always looked up to him.

All in all, they made 106 films together, which started as 20-minute sitcoms to run before the main cinema feature - but most of us watched them many years later on television.

Early films were reshot for foreign audiences with "idiot boards'' in French, Spanish and other languages - leading to laughs sometimes in the wrong places.

Their fan base was hugely international. As Greenhow says, "silent films are so easy to translate''.

Their films even made it to Romania - among a few western acts to get through the then Iron Curtain.

While successful as an actor, Laurel was not so lucky in love.

He was married five times and divorced four times, twice to the same woman.

Hardy's line: "Well here's another nice mess you've gotten me into'' has gained immortality, while one of their films was called Another Fine Mess.

Laurel's "If any of you cry at my funeral, I'll never speak to you again!'' has also gone down in history.

IF YOU GO

Laurel and Hardy Museum On Stage at the Roxy Brogden Street Ulverston Cumbria LA12 7AH.

The museum is open seven days a week from February to December (except Christmas Day) from 10am to 4.30pm.

Ulverston can be reached via Kendal in the Lake District by train from London (and then rental car or taxi).

BritRail Pass products: The passes are a convenient and economical way to explore Britain where the rail network, with over 19,000 daily train departures, allows access to 2500 destinations in England, Scotland and Wales.

For more information visit: visitcumbria.com and visitbritain.co.nz

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