Oliver Norvell Hardy (born Norvell Hardy; January 18, 1892 – August 7, 1957) was an American comic actor and one half of Laurel and Hardy, the double act that began in the era of silent films and lasted from 1926 to 1957. He appeared with his comedy partner Stan Laurel in 107 short films, feature films, and cameo roles. He was credited with his first film, Outwitting Dad, in 1914. In most of his silent films before joining producer Hal Roach, he was billed on screen as Babe Hardy.
Oliver Hardy was born Norvell Hardy on January 18, 1892, in Harlem, Georgia. His father, Oliver, was a Confederate States Army veteran of the American Civil War who had been wounded at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862, and was a recruiting officer for Company K, 16th Georgia Regiment. The elder Oliver Hardy assisted his father in running the remnants of the family's cotton plantation. He then bought a share in a retail business and was elected full-time Tax Collector for Columbia County, Georgia. Hardy's mother, Emily Norvell, was the daughter of Thomas Benjamin Norvell, who was descended from Hugh Norvell of Williamsburg, Virginia, and Mary Freeman. The elder Hardy and Norvell married March 12, 1890; it was her second marriage and his third.
The family moved to Madison, Georgia, in 1891, the year before Norvell's birth. He was likely born in Harlem, though some sources say that his birth occurred in Covington, Georgia, his mother's hometown. His father died less than a year after his birth. Hardy was the youngest of five children. His older brother Sam drowned in the Oconee River; Hardy pulled him from the river but was unable to resuscitate him.
As a child, Hardy was sometimes difficult. In the fifth grade he was sent to Georgia Military College in Milledgeville. In 1905, at age 13, he enrolled in the fall semester of the junior high school division at Young Harris College in north Georgia, which he completed successfully in January 1906. At that time, there were no two-year junior colleges. He had little interest in formal education, although he acquired an early interest in music and theater. He joined a theatrical group and later ran away from a boarding school near Atlanta to sing with the group. His mother recognized his talent for singing and sent him to Atlanta to study music and voice with singing teacher Adolf Dahm-Petersen. He skipped some of his lessons to sing in the Alcazar Theater for $3.50 a week. In 1912, he signed up for a course or two at University of Georgia as a law major for fall semester just to play football. He never missed a game.
As a teenager, Hardy began styling himself "Oliver Norvell Hardy", adding the first name "Oliver" as a tribute to his father. He appeared as "Oliver N. Hardy" in the 1910 U.S. census, and he used "Oliver" as his first name in all subsequent legal records, marriage announcements, etc. Hardy was initiated into Freemasonry at Solomon Lodge No. 20 in Jacksonville, Florida which helped him with room and board when he was starting out in show business. He was inducted into the Grand Order of Water Rats along with Stan Laurel.
In 1910, The Palace, a motion picture theater, opened in Hardy's hometown of Milledgeville, and he became the projectionist, ticket taker, janitor and manager. He soon became obsessed with the new motion picture industry and was convinced that he could do a better job than the actors that he saw. A friend suggested that he move to Jacksonville, Florida, where some films were being made, which he did in 1913. He worked in Jacksonville as a cabaret and vaudeville singer at night and at the Lubin Manufacturing Company during the day. It was at this time that he met Madelyn Saloshin, a pianist, whom he married on November 17, 1913, in Macon, Georgia.
The next year, he made his first movie, Outwitting Dad (1914), for the Lubin studio, billed as O. N. Hardy. In his personal life, he was known as "Babe" Hardy and was billed as "Babe Hardy" in many of his later films at Lubin, such as Back to the Farm (1914). He was a big man, standing 6 feet 1 inch (1.85 m) and weighing up to 300 pounds (c. 136 kg), and his size placed limits on the roles that he could play. He was most often cast as the villain, but he also had roles in comedy shorts, his size complementing the character. By 1915, Hardy had made 50 short one-reel films at Lubin. He moved to New York and made films for the Pathé, Casino and Edison Studios. He returned to Jacksonville, where he made films for the Vim Comedy Company. That studio closed after Hardy discovered that the owners were stealing from the payroll. He then worked for the King Bee studio, which bought Vim, and worked with Billy Ruge, Billy West (a Charlie Chaplin imitator), and comedic actress Ethel Burton. He continued playing the villains for West well into the early 1920s, often imitating Eric Campbell to West's Chaplin.
Between 1916 and 1917, Hardy experienced a brief directorial career. He is credited for directing or co-directing ten shorts, all played by him.
In 1917, Hardy moved to Los Angeles, working freelance for several Hollywood studios. He made more than 40 films for Vitagraph between 1918 and 1923, mostly playing the "heavy" for Larry Semon. In 1919, he separated from his wife, ending with a provisional divorce in November 1920 that was finalized on November 17, 1921. On November 24, 1921, he married actress Myrtle Reeves. This marriage was also unhappy, and Reeves was said to have become an alcoholic.
In 1921, he appeared in the movie The Lucky Dog, produced by Broncho Billy Anderson and starring Stan Laurel. Hardy played the part of a robber trying to hold up Stan's character. They did not work together again for several years.
In 1924, Hardy began working at Hal Roach Studios with the Our Gang films and Charley Chase. In 1925, his old boss Larry Semon hired him to play the Tin Man in Semon's feature-film adaptation of The Wizard of Oz. That same year another former colleague, Billy West, recruited Hardy to appear opposite mild-mannered comic Bobby Ray in four slapstick comedies. These shorts, with Hardy and Ray as fat-and-skinny characters in derbies, were prototypes for the later Laurel and Hardy comedies. As Hardy recalled in 1954, "Bobby was always the fall guy; I was the wise guy just as I am in Laurel and Hardy, only in Laurel and Hardy, I always am the fall guy. I think of [those pictures] once in a while as being the start of the Laurel and Hardy idea as far as I was concerned."
He continued to work in the Hal Roach comedies, like Yes, Yes, Nanette!, starring Jimmy Finlayson and directed by Stan Laurel. (In later years, Finlayson frequently was a supporting actor in the Laurel and Hardy film series.) He also continued playing supporting roles in films featuring Clyde Cook, including Wandering Papas (1925, directed by Laurel).
In 1926, Hardy was to appear in Get 'Em Young, but he was unexpectedly hospitalized after being burned by a hot leg of lamb. Laurel had been working as a gag man and a director at Roach Studios, so he was recruited to fill in. Laurel continued to act and appeared in 45 Minutes from Hollywood with Hardy, although they did not share any scenes together.
In 1927, Laurel and Hardy began sharing screen time together in Slipping Wives, Duck Soup (no relation to the 1933 Marx Brothers' film), and With Love and Hisses. Roach Studios' supervising director Leo McCarey recognized the audience reaction to the two and began teaming them together, which led to the start of a Laurel and Hardy series later that year.
They began producing a huge body of short comedies, including The Battle of the Century (1927) (with one of the greatest pie fights ever filmed), Should Married Men Go Home? (1928), Two Tars (1928), Unaccustomed As We Are (1929, marking their transition to talking pictures) Berth Marks (1929), Blotto (1930), Brats (1930), Another Fine Mess (1930), and Be Big! (1931). In 1929, they appeared in their first feature, in one of the revue sequences of Hollywood Revue of 1929, and the following year they appeared as the comic relief in a lavish Technicolor musical feature entitled The Rogue Song. This film marked their first appearance in color, yet only a few fragments of this film survive. In 1931, they starred in their first full-length movie Pardon Us, and they continued to make features and shorts until 1935. The 1932 film The Music Box won an Academy Award for best short film, their only effort to receive such an award.