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NOTE: This is an old issue of the Brushwood Gulch Gazette, which has been archived for reference purposes. Although some links have been updated, the text of this archived newsletter remains unchanged. Please keep in mind that these articles have NOT been updated to reflect changes that may have occurred since they were originally printed. Return to the index of archived issues. |
On the evening of Tuesday, January 16, we will celebrate Oliver Hardy's birthday at our first meeting of 2001. This meeting will take place two days before what would have been Mr. Hardy's 109th birthday. In tribute, we will screen some of Oliver Hardy's solo work, as well as some of his best work with his partner Stan Laurel. There will also be birthday cake to help in the celebration.
Our film program for the evening will begin with the Charley Chase short Sittin' Pretty (1924). We will see a scene from Frank Capra's Riding High (1950), featuring Oliver Hardy. That will be followed by the Laurel and Hardy films Busy Bodies (1933) and Dirty Work (1933). The evening will conclude with a screening of the John Wayne film The Fighting Kentuckian (1949), which features Oliver Hardy as Wayne's sidekick, Willie Payne.
So join our celebration at the Mayflower Club, located at 11110 Victory Boulevard in North Hollywood...just west of Vineland Avenue. The doors will open at 6:30 PM and the meeting will begin at 7:15PM. The Famous Fabulous Fisher Franks will be debuting the 2001 models, and the Marvelous Mayflower Bar will also be prepared to serve your liquid needs. We'll look forward to seeing you on Tuesday, January 16, 2001.
Click here for a map to the Mayflower Club...
January marks the start of the Way Out West Tent's 34th year, which means that it is time to renew your dues for 2001. There will be five meetings this year. In addition, we will top off the year with our annual banquet in October. Admission to regular meetings is free to members who have paid their dues. Members will also receive discounted admission to the annual banquet. Membership dues will remain the same as they were in 2000; single membership is $28, dual membership is $44, and family membership is $48. The family rate requires all members to live at the same address. Please renew your dues as soon as possible, as we depend on this income to cover the tent's expenses for the upcoming year. Your dues will be used to cover such costs as renting our meeting hall, mailing our newsletter, and providing flowers for the graves of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy.
The City of Los Angeles has placed brand new street signs at the stairs used in the film The Music Box. Signs which read "Music Box Steps" have been placed at both the top and at the bottom of the stairs. They are just like the standard blue street signs used throughout Los Angeles to label street intersections. In addition, the numerous plants along the stairway have been trimmed to provide a clear view of the steps from top to bottom. The stairs are located at the intersection of North Vendome Street and Del Monte Drive in the Silverlake neighborhood of Hollywood.
The Sons of the Desert Advisory Committee is offering a special Sons of the Desert Membership Certificate. Each certificate will be personally signed by the surviving founding members of the Sons, which consist of Exhausted Ruler John McCabe, Orson Bean, and Chuck McCann. Certificates will be numbered from 1 through 250. This will be a unique piece of memorabilia for you or a very nice gift for your favorite Son of the Desert. All proceeds from this sale will go to the Intra-Tent Journal, which will use the funds to resume their publication on a regular basis. Because this offering is strictly limited to 250 certificates, be sure to send in your order soon. Send $25 (plus $2 postage and handling) to Bob Satterfield, P.O. Box 448, Patton, CA 92369-0448. Make your check or money order payable to Bob Satterfield. Personal checks will be held 10 days for bank clearance.
Marie Windsor, who was best known to Laurel and Hardy fans as Ann Logan in The Fighting Kentuckian, passed away of natural causes at her home on Sunday, December 10, 2000.
She grew up in Marysvale, Utah, where she began acting lessons at the age of 11. After majoring in drama at Brigham Young University, she was off to Hollywood to begin studying with Maria Ouspenskaya in 1940. She later traveled to New York and appeared in over 300 radio dramas. On Broadway, she performed in Follow the Girls. This led to a contract with MGM.
Some of her film credits include The Narrow Margin where she played a gangster's widow and Stanley Kubrick's The Killing found her as an unfaithful wife. In her later years, she remained active in the Screen Actors Guild and the Motion Picture and Television Fund.
In 1983, she was awarded a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame, and in 1990, she received the Ralph Morgan Award for 25 years of distinguished service on the board of directors for the Screen Actors Guild. She was also named honorary chairwoman of the Screen Actors Guild Film Society, which she co-founded. Her last appearance with the Way Out West Tent was in October of 1989 at our banquet at the Burbank Airport Hilton.
A memorial service was held on January 6 at the Louis B. Mayer Theater at the Motion Picture & Television Fund location in Woodland Hills.
The official publication of the Sons of the Desert, the Intra-Tent Journal, has resumed publication. With this new issue, the Journal is set to resume a quarterly printing schedule. Publication has been sporadic for the past two years, due to financial problems. But some creative fund raisers have given the editors the money that they need to get issue #99 published. The issue contains a great article about our own Anita Garvin that you won't want to miss! Now that the journal is back on its feet, please support it by buying your copy at the next meeting.
The meeting of December 12, 2000 began as Bob Duncan introduced our first two films of the evening, Walt Disney's Movie Star Mickey and Charley Chase's His Wooden Wedding. Vice-Sheik Jimmy Wiley was up next to lead us in the singing of the Sons of the Desert song and the traditional toasts. Bob Duncan then introduced our feature for the evening, Nothing But Trouble starring the boys. During the break we honored the birthday of Lois Laurel Hawes and celebrated the holidays with delicious cakes. The film program concluded with Stan and Ollie starring in Love 'Em and Weep and Below Zero. Our good friend and L&H costumer, Jay Dare was on hand to wrap up the year with us. Also, a very special thank you to all of you who donated so generously with many canned goods to the Maud Booth Family Center.
Thirty years ago, Way Out West member Paul Pumpian gave the following toast at a Los Angeles meeting in celebration of Oliver Hardy's birthday. On this anniversary of Babe's birth, we present it once again, as it previously appeared in our tent's publication Pratfall...
If a man were so proud of his honor, dignity and chivalry that he wore these virtues like medals---and yet he found that everywhere he went there were people waiting to strip these things from him, you'd have a very tragic character.
That is, unless that individual was Oliver Norvell Hardy---the man who took his own genuine sense of honor and dignity and chivalry to the screen and exaggerated these qualities to such incredible heights that he soared beyond the limits of tragedy and crossed that invisible line into hilarious comedy.
For years, we sat in the movie theaters and screamed with laughter as this well intentioned man suffered horribly at the hands of wives, sweethearts, policemen, criminals, landlords, jealous suitors and creditors...but all of these people combined didn't wound him nearly as deeply as did his constant companion.
Stan Laurel vexed Oliver and frustrated him and inflicted physical havoc upon him at every turn in the road. And yet, you always knew that when the last reel had flickered out, Babe and Stan would still be together. You see, as a man of honor, dignity and chivalry, Babe Hardy could only choose to suffer along with a difficult friendship rather than try to end it.
Stan Laurel was the architect of the team's brilliance---but it was Babe who made the relationship between them plausible. He was the one who made it work.
We all know that Hollywood has produced hundreds of extremely talented comedy actors, but is there anyone among them who'd have made you believe that he would have suffered along with Stan's companionship in one film after another? No, I think not. Only a gentleman like Babe Hardy could have made it seem convincing.
How many times have we heard Babe introduce Stan by saying "This is my friend, Mr. Laurel"? Many, many times. But if you think back for a moment, no one ever introduced Babe. Never.
So let's remedy that situation. Ladies and gentlemen, a toast...I'd like to introduce our very good friend---Mr. Hardy.
85 years ago - While at Vim Comedies, Babe Hardy appears in
This Way Out, A Special Delivery, A Sticky
Affair, and One Too Many as the character of Plump to
Billy Ruge's Runt from the team of Plump and Runt. He also goes on to
appear in Chickens, Frenzied Finance, Busted
Hearts, Bungles Rainy Day, and Bungles Enforces the
Law.
(January - February 1916)
80 years ago - Stan Laurel begins filming a two reel comedy
that would star him with an actor that would one day create the
world's greatest comedy team. The Lucky Dog had the bandit, played by Oliver
Hardy, having his first encounter with Stan Laurel in a meeting that
would one day change the history of motion picture comedy.
(January - February 1921)
75 years ago - Babe Hardy stars as the foreman with Clyde
Cook as the camp cook in Wandering Papas for the Hal Roach
Studios. The director and co-writer is Stan Laurel. William
Gillespie, who would later appear as the piano salesman in
The Music
Box, has a part in this two-reeler.
(February 21, 1926)
70 years ago - Work is complete on the boys three-reeler
titled The Chiselers. At its release, the film is better known
as Be Big.
This will be Anita Garvin's last Laurel and Hardy film until
1938.
(February 7, 1931)
65 years ago - The Bohemian Girl hits the theaters. As a result
of Thelma Todd's untimely death in December 1935, most of her scenes
in this film are deleted to prevent any unwanted publicity.
(February 14, 1936)
35 years ago - Bobby Burns, best remembered as the blind
man in Laurel and Hardy's Below Zero, dies at the age of 87.
(January 16, 1966)
January 1 Matthew Stymie Beard Our Gang 3 ZaSu Pitts On the Loose 12 Patsy Kelly Pick a Star 14 Mary Ann Jackson Our Gang 14 Hal Roach 18 Oliver Hardy 18 Norman Chubby Chaney Our Gang 20 Rolfe Sedan Double Whoopee 26 Alf Goulding A Chump at Oxford (director) 28 Mary Boland Nothing But Trouble 30 Wilfred Lucas Pardon Us, A Chump at Oxford February 2 Noah Young Sugar Daddies, Do Detectives Think? 10 Jimmy Durante Hollywood Party 10 Alan Hale, Sr. Our Relations 11 Anita Garvin From Soup to Nuts 11 Angelo Rossitto Babes in Toyland 14 Trudy Marshall The Dancing Masters 14 Jack Benny The Hollywood Revue of 1929 14 Jimmy Murphy Stan Laurel's valet 15 William Janney Bonnie Scotland 25 Dick Jones Our Gang, Babes in Toyland 26 Stanley J. "Tiny" Sandford Big Business, Busy Bodies, Pardon Us
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