How a talent for truancy got young Stan into many a fine mess
BLINDED by the footlights, he walked diffidently onto the stage wearing a bashed top hat, his dad’s good suit and t he bemused expression that would one day make the whole world howl with laughter.
For the moment, however, faced with the toughest audience in Britain, comedy immortality was a long way off for the young and nervous Arthur Stanley Jefferson, a boy from south of the River Clyde who had often ‘plunked’ school to attend matinees in the Britannia Panopticon music hall, on the fringe of Glasgow’s wild East End.
In the darkness, more than 1,000 raucous, ‘keelies’ fingered the shipyard rivets in their pockets and reached down for the dollops of dung gathered from the streets on their way to the world’s first variety theatre.
He knew what to expect if the patrons of the ‘Pots & Pans’ were less than impressed by the theatrical debut of a 16-year- old desperate for a career in showbiz. As it turned out, he need not have worried.
On that momentous Friday evening in 1906, the laughter would carry off Arthur, replace him with Stan Laurel – and put the unsteady feet of a gauche youth on the path to Hollywood and stardom alongside the inimitable Oliver Hardy.
‘Glasgow was the absolute key to it all,’ says writer, director and actor Alex Norton, best known to television audiences as Detective Chief Inspector Matt Burke in Taggart.
‘If he hadn’t been living there, playing truant to see the matinees in the many, many variety theatres, he wouldn’t have honed the skills and techniques he nurtured into a glittering career, first as a solo performer and then in his partnership with the incomparable Oliver Hardy.’
On the eve of what would have been Laurel’s 125th birthday tomorrow – which is being celebrated throughout the month with UK-wide cinema screenings of the comic duo’s classic movies, Norton, an expert on the legend, adds: ‘It all began in the Pots & Pans. Some stories suggest he got the dung and rivet barrage – but it’s a myth. He would write many years later that the audience was every kind to him.’
AFEARFUL schoolboy managed what some of the biggest stars of the era had failed. He began brightly, cracking jokes he had bought for a penny less than an hour earlier. The audience tittered. He broke into a song and dance, lost his footing and fell. The audience howled at the first of his trademark prat falls.
Leaping to his feet, he tumbled again, tore his Dad’s jacket and kicked his hat into the orchestra where a female musician fell on her bottom trying to retrieve it. The fortunate few who were there had witnessed the birth of one of the world’s most enduring stars.
‘It is something which couldn’t have happened if his family had stayed in Cumbria, where Stan was born,’ says Norton. ‘As a youngster in Glasgow, a city with an international reputation, he saw the world’s biggest stars, performers such as WC Fields, Charlie Chaplin, Dan Leno and Sir Harry Lauder.
‘He was a committed perfectionist, watching, learning and probably stealing their best gags. When you add in his own innate genius, it would have a huge impact on his career.’
Within a few years of his debut, Laurel was on his way to the US. By 1917, he was acting alongside Chaplin and heading f or the partnership whi c h wo ul d produce a l most 100 fi l ms showcasing the greatest duo in comedy history.
It would be far cry from the city he regarded as home, having arrived in Glasgow as a child with his actress mother Margaret and father AJ, who had been appointed manager of t he Metropole Theatre.
The family lived in comfort in the southern suburbs, variously in Cambuslang, Rutherglen and Queen’s Park, where Stan went to primary school.
Many years later, on a visit to Queen’s Park and dressed resplendently in a kilt, he would show the children how he had ‘escaped’ from the playground to visit the theatres where he learned his craft.
Norton says: ‘ His father had forbidden him to go on the stage, deciding his son would follow in his footsteps as a theatrical manager and impresario.
‘He didn’t learn his son was dogging off school until he got a letter from the headmaster, thanking AJ for all the complimentary theatre tickets. Young Stan had been handing them out so the staff would turn a blind eye to his truancy.
‘It was inevitable that, by using his family connection, he would approach t he owner of t he Panopticon and ask for a slot on one of the famous, or infamous, Friday night shows.
‘As it happened, his Dad was, coincidentally, in the audience. After Stan’s turn, there was no more talk of him not going on the stage.’
Norton is delighted about the screenings of The Laurel and Hardy Roadshow in 19 cinemas, three of them in Glasgow, Edinburgh and Perth, saying: ‘ It will be very special.’
It has been organised by Ross Owen, who runs the Laurel and Hardy Forum from Cumbernauld in Lanarkshire.
He says: ‘It represents the biggest revival of the comedy duo since the 1970s.
‘It is something which is long overdue and, with the 125th anniversary of Stan’s birth, we felt the time was right to stage something very special.
‘The aim of the national screenings is for families, grandparents, mums, dads and the kids to put down their iPods, tablets, iPhones and laptops for a couple of hours and enjoy Laurel and Hardy as they were meant to be seen, in a cinema with a packed audience.’
It is a view shared by writer and actor Ricky Gervais: ‘Anything that helps preserve the legend of the greatest comedy team of all time for future generations is a good thing. I’m so glad they’re showing the glory of Laurel and Hardy in cinemas.’
Mr Owen adds: ‘ Over their 30 years together, Laurel and Hardy appeared in 40 short sound films, 32 short silent films and 23 fulllength features. The first was in 1921 and the last in 1952. It was an amazing partnership.
‘Stan never forgot the city where it all began, revisiting Glasgow four times, in 1932, 1947, 1952 and 1953-54. He even had a kilt made to celebrate hi s l ove f or and connection to Scotland.’
NORTON, who was i nspired to act by Laurel and has written a play on his debut, says: ‘As a child in the 1950s, I spent hours laughing at the classic films. As I got older, I appreciated more of the art that went into his work and how clever he was with his gags.
‘Working in this business, I realised what a genius he was. He was an inspiration to me. His father was at first against him going into the business, as was mine, so I knew how he felt.
‘I always remember something Bill Connolly said – the minute Laurel and Hardy came on screen, you knew instinctively they were your pals. It is the best description of them I have heard.’