Oliver Hardy in the Southern Quote

This son of a Confederate war veteran was born January 18th, 1892 in Harlem, Georgia. Less than a year later, his father was dead and his mother was struggling to find work to support the family. They moved several times before settling in Milledgeville where she took a job managing the Baldwin Hotel.

It was in the hotel lobby that young Norvell developed both a fascination with watching people and observing their mannerisms and an interest in music and theater, likely picked up by his mother’s traveling tenants. By the age of eight he was an aspiring singer, performing in local minstrel shows, and planning a career in show business. Over the next ten years Norvell— the uninspired student— ran away from home, from a boarding school, and from a military school before his mother gave in and let him stay in Atlanta to study singing.

After working in a movie theater, Novell broadened his goals to include acting and comedy. He also began using the professional name of Oliver, in memory of the father he never knew. By his early thirties Oliver was finding work as a comic but it was his pairing with another funny man named Stan Laurel that put him in the record books. Laurel and Hardy enjoyed tremendous success as two of Hollywood’s biggest stars from the 1930’s to the 1950’s and are remembered today as the most famous comedy team of all time.

In today’s southern quote we hear Oliver Hardy’s thoughts on the success behind the famous duo. The late Oliver Hardy once said, “The world is full of Laurel and Hardys. I saw them all the time as a boy at my mother’s hotel. There’s always the dumb, dumb guy, who never has anything bad happen to him, and the smart guy who’s even dumber than the dumb guy, only he doesn’t know it.”

Hugs, Shellie