The In-Sect - article - tv - history - This is Your Life - Laurel and Hardy

Clicking my way through YouTube yesterday I found a clip from a famous tv show called “This is Your Life” from 1954.

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Something about that show made me very sad and depressed. Laurel and Hardy is the best and most famous comedy double act in the history of cinema. They’ve influenced comedy so sustainable I dare to say: Without this duo there’d be no Jim Carrey, Shrek, Jack Black or almost any other modern comedian.
They were REALLY surprised about the invitation – Stan Laurel was actually angry about this stunt. “Oliver and I were always planning to do something on TV. But we never dreamed that we would make our television debut on an unrehearsed network program. I was damned if I was going to put on a free show for them!”. Stan was 64 and Oliver 62 years old and they were working as a duo for 27 years when Ralph Edwards dumbfounded them. This is their only television appearance in America and the audible gasp at the start of the show is due to the fact that the audience was unaware they were still alive.

Laurel and Hardy in 1956
Oliver was already suffering under his bad heart’s condition at that time and began to lose weight. Two years later he had lost more than 100 pounds, but several strokes took him down nevertheless and he died on August 7, 1957. Stan was not able to attend his funeral and he never performed again. Instead he spend his days answering every fan letter personally. About 1962 a new generation of comedians – Jerry Lewis and Dick Cavett, to name two – re-discovered the work of these slapstick superstars. Stan died in 1965 in Santa Monica. The artwork above is from Sebastian Krüger.