Hal Roach | |
|---|---|
.jpg) Roach in 1920 | |
| Born | Harold Eugene Roach (1892-01-14)January 14, 1892 Elmira, New York, U.S. |
| Died | November 2, 1992(1992-11-02) (aged 100) Los Angeles,California, U.S. |
| Resting place | Woodlawn Cemetery |
| Occupations |
|
| Years active | 1912–1992 |
| Spouses | |
| Children | 6, includingHal andMargaret |
| Relatives | Robert Livingston (former-son-in-law) |
Harold Eugene "Hal"Roach Sr.[1] (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director and screenwriter, who was the founder of the namesakeHal Roach Studios.
Roach was active in the industry from the 1910s to the 1990s. He is known for producing a number of earlymedia franchise successes, including theLaurel and Hardy franchise,Harold Lloyd's early films, the films of entertainerCharley Chase, and theOur Gang short film comedy series.
Roach was born inElmira, New York, to Charles Henry Roach, whose father was born inWicklow,County Wicklow, Ireland, and Mabel Gertrude Bally, her father John Bally being fromSwitzerland.[1] A presentation by the American humoristMark Twain impressed Roach as a younggrade school student.[citation needed]
Hal's first job was as a newspaper deliverer. One of his customers lived at Quarry Farm - Samuel Clemens, more widely known asMark Twain."[2]
After an adventurous[2] youth that took him toAlaska, Roach arrived inHollywood in 1912 and began working as anextra in silent films.
When Hal Roach came to Southern California at the age of 20, he had reached the tail end of a four-year trek across America, which took him from his hometown of Elmira, New York to Alaska, and down the Pacific Coast. Along the way, he picked up the know-how necessary to land work as an extra in aJ. Warren Kerrigan western, which was being filmed on location in the desert. It was here that he first met fellow playerHarold Lloyd, the first of many talents whom Hal Roach would nurture and build a fortune on. During the filming of a roulette sequence, Roach got himself promoted to the position of technical advisor by pointing out that the ball has to travel in the opposite direction of the wheel – knowledge he had gained inSan Francisco's Barbary Coast.[3]
On July 23, 1914, Roach incorporatedRolin Film Company with Dan Linthicum and I.H. Nance.[4]
In 1914, theLewis Leonard Bradbury (November 6, 1823 – July 15, 1892) mansion, on the corner of Court Street and Hill Street,Bunker Hill, Los Angeles, California, was Roach's film studio.[5][6][7]
Upon coming into an inheritance,[8] in 1915 he began producingshort film comedies with his friendHarold Lloyd, who portrayed a character known as Willie Work, as inWillie Runs the Park and Lonesome Luke, as inLonesome Luke, Social Gangster.
In 1915, his first success,Just Nuts (1915), landed a long-standing distribution deal withPathé Exchange.[9]
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Unable to expand his studios inDowntown Los Angeles because ofzoning, Roach leased[10] several studio sites in the Los Angeles area until he purchased what became the Hal Roach Studios fromHarry Culver inCulver City, California, at 8822 Washington Boulevard, and built by 1920.[11] During the 1920s and 1930s, he employedLloyd (his top money-maker until his departure in 1923),Will Rogers,Max Davidson, theOur Gang children,Charley Chase,Harry Langdon,Thelma Todd,ZaSu Pitts,Patsy Kelly and, most famously,Laurel and Hardy. During the 1920s, Roach's biggest rival was producerMack Sennett. In 1925, Roachhired away Sennett's supervising director,F. Richard Jones.[12]
Roach released his films throughPathé Exchange until 1927, when he struck a distribution deal withMetro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He converted his silent-movie studio to sound in late 1928 and began releasing talking shorts in early 1929. In the days beforedubbing, foreign-language versions of the Roach comedies were created by reshooting each film inSpanish,French, and occasionallyItalian andGerman. Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, and the Our Gang kids (some of whom had barely begun school) were required to recite the foreign dialoguephonetically, often working from blackboards hidden off-camera.[citation needed]
In 1931, with the release of the Laurel & Hardy filmPardon Us, Roach began producing occasional full-length features alongside the short subjects. Two-reel comedies were less profitable than features, and Roach phased most of them out by 1936. When theOur Gang feature filmGeneral Spanky did not do as well as expected, Roach intended to disband Our Gang entirely. MGM still wanted the Our Gang short subjects, so Roach agreed to supply them in single-reel (10-minute) form.
Roach was also a good friend toWalt Disney, who was a fan of Laurel and Hardy at the time. A monkey dressed in aMickey Mouse costume as well as actors inThree Little Pigs costumes appeared in the 1934 Laurel and Hardy filmMarch of the Wooden Soldiers. Mickey Mouse also appeared inHollywood Party, also from 1934 and featuring Laurel and Hardy.
In 1937, Renato Senise,[13][14] nephew ofCarmine Senise, the then deputy chief of the Italian police,[15] conceived a joint business venture of Roach partnering withVittorio Mussolini,[16] son of fascist Italian dictatorBenito Mussolini, to form a production company called "R.A.M." (Roach and Mussolini).[17] On 11 September 1937, Roach and Vittorio Mussolini formed R.A.M. Productions.[18]
Roach claimed the scheme involved Italian bankers providing US$6 million that would enable Roach's studio to produce a series of 12 films. Eight would be for Italian screening only while the remaining four would receive world distribution. The first film for Italy was to be a feature film of the operaRigoletto.[19]
TheHollywood Anti-Nazi League for the Defense of American Democracy[20] resented Mussolini's presence and placed notices in various trade magazines: "He asked for – and received – the privilege of being the first aviator to bomb helpless Ethiopians ... his presence here is not an occasion for celebration or social fetes. Those who welcome him are opening their arms to a friend of Hitler and an enemy of democracy."[21]
Roach defended himself by saying:
You don't know, but that I might have dinner with Mussolini when I go back to Italy. Maybe I can suggest to him that Hitler is not going quite right about things and maybe Mussolini will write Hitler a note and tell him so... I never made a move in Europe in this matter at any time without the advice and cooperation of some of the most prominent Jews there who told me I was doing the finest thing ever done in their estimation — tying up with Mussolini's son and taking the boy back to Hollywood...[22]
This proposed business alliance with Mussolini alarmed MGM, which intervened and forced Roach to buy his way out of the venture.Loews chairmanNicholas Schenck was so upset with this incident, combined with the underperformance of much of Roach's latest feature-film output (except Laurel & Hardy titles and the 1937 hitTopper), that he ultimately canceled Roach's distribution contract with MGM.[23]
In May 1938, Roach sold MGM the production rights and actors contracts to theOur Gang shorts. Roach signed a distribution deal withUnited Artists at this time.[24]
From 1937 to 1940, Roach concentrated on producing glossy features, abandoning low comedy almost completely. Most of his new films were either sophisticated farces (likeTopper andThe Housekeeper's Daughter, 1939) or rugged action fare (likeCaptain Fury, 1939, andOne Million B.C., 1940). Roach's one venture into heavy drama was the acclaimedOf Mice and Men (1939), in which actorsBurgess Meredith andLon Chaney Jr. played the leading roles. The Laurel and Hardy comedies, once the Roach studio's biggest drawing cards, were now the studio's least important product and were phased out altogether in 1940.
In 1940, Roach experimented with medium-lengthfeaturettes, running 40 to 50 minutes each. He contended that these "streamliners", as he called them, would be useful indouble feature situations where the main attraction was a longer-length epic. Exhibitors agreed with him and used Roach's mini-features to balance top-heavy double bills. He had intended to introduce the new format with a series of four Laurel and Hardy featurettes, but was overruled by United Artists, which insisted on two Laurel & Hardy feature films instead.[25] United Artists continued to release Roach's streamliners through 1943. By this time, Roach no longer had a resident company of comedy stars and cast his films with familiar featured players (William Tracy andJoe Sawyer,Johnny Downs,Jean Porter,Frank Faylen,William Bendix,George E. Stone,Bobby Watson, etc.).
Recognizing the value of his film library, in 1943 Roach began licensing revivals of his older productions for theatrical distribution through Film Classics, Inc.[26] and home-movie distribution.[27]
Hal Roach Sr., commissioned in theU.S. Army Signal Reserve Corps in 1927,[28] was called back to active military duty in theSignal Corps in June 1942, at age 50. The studio output he oversaw in uniform was converted from entertainment featurettes to militarytraining films. The studios were leased to theU.S. Army Air Forces, and theFirst Motion Picture Unit made 400 training, morale andpropaganda films at "Fort Roach." Members of the unit includedRonald Reagan andAlan Ladd. After the war the government returned the studio to Roach, with millions of dollars of improvements.[29]
In 1946, Hal Roach resumed motion picture production, with former Harold Lloyd co-starBebe Daniels as an associate producer. Roach was the first Hollywood producer to adopt an all-color production schedule, making four streamliners inCinecolor, although the increased production costs did not result in increased revenue. In 1948, with his studio deeply in debt, Roach re-established his studio for television production, with Hal Roach Jr., producing series such asThe Stu Erwin Show,Steve Donovan, Western Marshal,Racket Squad,The Public Defender,The Gale Storm Show,Rocky Jones, Space Ranger andMy Little Margie, and independent producers leasing the facilities for such programs asAmos 'n' Andy,The Life of Riley andThe Abbott and Costello Show. By 1951, the studio was producing 1,500 hours of television programs a year, nearly three times Hollywood's annual output of feature movies.[30]
Roach's old theatrical films were also early arrivals on television. His Laurel and Hardy comedies were successful intelevision syndication, as were theOur Gang comedies he produced from 1929 to 1938.
In 1955, Roach sold his interests in the production company to his son, Hal Roach Jr., and retired from active production. The younger Roach lacked much of his father's business acumen and was forced to sell the studio in 1958 to The Scranton Corporation, a division of the automobile-parts conglomerate F. L. Jacobs Co.[31] The Roach studio finally shut down in 1961.[32]
For two more decades, Roach Sr. occasionally worked as a consultant on projects related to his past work. In 1983 the "Hal Roach Studios" name was reactivated as a video concern, pioneering the new field of colorizing movies. Roach lent his film library to the cause but was otherwise not involved in the new video productions. Extremely vigorous into an advanced age, Roach contemplated a comedy comeback at 96.[33]
In 1984, 92-year-old Roach was presented with anhonorary Academy Award. FormerOur Gang membersJackie Cooper andGeorge "Spanky" McFarland made the presentation to a flattered Roach, with McFarland thanking the producer for hiring him 53 years prior. An additionalOur Gang member,Ernie Morrison, was in the crowd and started the standing ovation for Roach. Years earlier Cooper had been the youngest Academy Award nominee ever for his performance inSkippy when he had been under contract with Roach. Although Paramount had paid Roach $25,000 for Cooper's services in that film, Roach paid Cooper only his standard salary of $50 per week.[34]
On January 21, 1992, Roach was a guest onThe Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, guest-hosted byJay Leno, one week after his 100th birthday. During the interview, Roach recounted experiences with such stars as Stan Laurel andJean Harlow; he even did a brief, energetic demonstration of the "humble hula" dance.[35] In February 1992, Roach traveled toBerlin to receive the honorary award of theBerlinale Kamera for Lifetime Achievement at the42nd Berlin International Film Festival.[36]
On March 30, 1992, Roach appeared at the64th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted byBilly Crystal. When Roach rose from the audience to a standing ovation, he decided to give a speech without a microphone, causing Crystal to quip "I think that's appropriate because Mr. Roach started in silent films."[37]
In 1916, Roach's mother and father moved into Roach's studio in Culver City, living there until their death.[2]
In September 1916, Roach married actressMarguerite Nichols, who worked as an actress in the 1930s and 1940s, and died in March 1941. They had two children,Hal Roach Jr., who followed his father as a producer and director, andMargaret Roach.[38]
Roach married a second time, on September 1, 1942, to Lucille Prin, a Los Angeles secretary.[39] They were married at the on-base home ofColonel Franklin C. Wolfe and his wife atWright-Patterson Airfield inDayton, Ohio, where Roach was stationed at the time while serving as a major in theUnited States Army Air Corps.[39] Roach and Lucille had four children, Elizabeth Carson Roach (December 26, 1945 – September 5, 1946), Maria May Roach (born April 14, 1947),[citation needed] Jeanne Alice Roach (born October 7, 1949), and Kathleen Bridget Roach (born January 29, 1951).[38]
Hal Roach died in his home inBel Air, Los Angeles, frompneumonia, on November 2, 1992, at the age of 100. He had married twice, and had six children, eight grandchildren, and a number of great-grandchildren. Roach outlived three of his children by more than 20 years: Hal Jr. (died in 1972), Margaret (died in 1964), and Elizabeth (died in 1946). He also outlived many of the children who starred in his films.[38] Roach is buried inWoodlawn Cemetery inElmira, New York, where he grew up.[40]
In the 2018Laurel and HardybiopicStan & Ollie, Roach was portrayed byDanny Huston.
In 2020,Rose McGowan alleged that, in 1937, Roach was responsible for a case of large-scalesexual abuse of actresses. The closest link to such accusations against him is that an infamous sex party was held by MGM at the Hal Roach Ranch, which was used by the company as astudio. This is also in relation to one of the earliest reports of rape in Hollywood, filed by blacklisted dancer and extraPatricia Douglas, which was later covered in the documentaryGirl 27, a production McGowan herself has praised for educating onsexual abuse in Hollywood.[41][42]
