He was divorced a lot - that costs money.
Regards,
Shodan
As to the preceding suggestion that Laurel was not impoverished but rather had “simple tastes,” it’s perhaps significant to recall that, all those years later, he kept his name in the Calif. phone book and would converse at length with at least some fans who’d had the cojones to actually dial the number.
I imagine most ex-Hollywood stars kept private phone numbers or had their phone numbers registered under aliases in order to avoid such “nuisances.”
Sure it does, but it’s worth it.
A few years back, Dick Cavett wrote a pierce in the New York Times about visiting Stan Laurel at his apartment back in 1960- it gives a portrait of a man who certainly wasn’t living in luxury but seemed comfortable and fairly happy in his retirement.
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/09/07/the-fine-mess-maker-at-home/?_r=0
As Norval says, Laurel had a listed phone number and seemed to enjoy visits and correspondence from fans.
The most touching part of the article, for me, was that even several years after Oliver Hardy’s death, Laurel still found himself concocting sketches and routines for the two of them to perform.
Lou Costello and Bud Abbott were friends at one point, and gradually grew apart to the point where they couldn’t stand each other, as I understand it. There is home movie footage of them at each other’s homes having a good time. At some point, Lou had people tell him he was the real talent of the group often enough that he believed it. His ego became such that he was actively looking for another straight man, and couldn’t find one as good as Bud (who was considered one of the finest straight men in the business). He didn’t hide it at all, which understandably angered Bud, and this combined with his desire to have “Costello” come before “Abbott” in the name of the act and to cut Bud’s share of the salary down significantly soured things to the point mentioned, where they wouldn’t talk to each other outside of work. Even then, they stayed together for quite a while because the money was still good.
You know why a woman takes more than 50% during a divorce?
Its not because they want that much.
Its because they know you’ll eventually realize what a deal that is and want to prevent you from buying more than one.
Laurel and Hardy were funny. Stan was as driven a craftsman as was his former Fred Carno troupemate Charlie Chaplin, though sadly not as shrewd a businessman. Also, Ollie was happy to work for him. Ollie famously left to play golf while Stan stayed to edit, but that doesn’t tell the full story. Not only was Stan lucky to have an unegotisical though professional partner, Ollie had a partner who didn’t mind doing the extra work while not morphing into a demanding slave driver. Jerry Lewis drove Dean Martin out that way.
That was demonstrated not just in Ollie’s work but with the women comedians he cast too. There are no strong, well-developed comedy actresses in the films of Chaplin, Keaton or Lloyd. They’d cast some cutie for their characters to be lovably girl-shy over, then use her as a plot device for all sorts of stunts and gags. To his credit, Stan Laurel hired talented people like Mae Busch and Anita Garvin and allowed them to flourish.