Charlie Hall
Acting
- Born:
- 1899-08-18
- Died:
- 1959-12-07
- Place of birth:
- Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK
Biography
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Charlie Hall (19 August 1899 – 7 December 1959) was an English film actor. He is best known as the "Little Nemesis" of Laurel and Hardy and appeared in nearly 50 films with them, so that Hall was the most frequent supporting actor of their films. Hall was born in Ward End, Birmingham, Warwickshire, and learned carpentry as a trade, but as a teenager, he became a member of the Fred Karno troupe of stage comedians. In his late teens, he visited his sister in New York and stayed there, finding employment as a stagehand. While working behind the scenes, he met the comic actor Bobby Dunn and they became friends; Dunn convinced Hall to take a stab again at acting, which he did. By the mid-1920s, Hall was working for Hal Roach. Stan Laurel, one of Roach's comedy stars, was also a graduate of the Karno troupe. As an actor, Hall worked with such comedians as Buster Keaton and Charley Chase, but is best remembered as a comic foil for Laurel and Hardy. He appeared in nearly 50 of their films, sometimes in bit parts, but often as a mean landlord or opponent in many of their memorable tit-for-tat sequences. Unlike the usual villains in Laurel and Hardy films, who were big and burly, Charlie Hall (billed as "Charley" Hall in the Roach comedies) was of short stature, standing 5 ft 5 in tall. His height and slight English accent allowed him to be convincingly cast as a college student, despite being 40 years old, in Laurel and Hardy's A Chump at Oxford. Hall almost never played starring roles; the exception was in 1941, when he was teamed with character comedian Frank Faylen by Monogram Pictures. Hall continued to play bits and supporting roles in short subjects and features through the 1940s and 1950s, occasionally on TV, appearing very briefly in Charlie Chaplin's final American film, Limelight (1952). In 1956 he played a small but important part in the TV show Cheyenne, season 1, episode 11, "Quicksand", starring Clint Walker, with Dennis Hopper, John Alderson, Wright King and Peggy Webber. His last role was in a Joe McDoakes short film starring George O'Hanlon, So You Want to Play the Piano, in 1956. Hall died in North Hollywood, California, on 7 December 1959. A J D Wetherspoon's public house in Erdington, is named The Charlie Hall as a tribute to him.
Known For
Filmography
Laurel & Hardy: Year Two
Dance of the Cookoos
The Best of Laurel and Hardy
The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy
No Hiding Place
So You Want to Play the Piano
Illegal
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
Cheyenne
Topper
The Abbott and Costello Show
Limelight
The Milkman
Abie's Irish Rose
Sister Kenny
Dressed to Kill
Without Reservations
On Stage Everybody
Hi, Beautiful
In Society
Girls! Girls! Girls!
Radio Rampage
The Lodger
His Butler's Sister
So's Your Uncle
Honeymoon Lodge
The Ape Man
Police Bullets
The Big Street
The Falcon Takes Over
Framing Father
Man From Headquarters
Hellzapoppin'
A Quiet Fourth
The Mexican Spitfire's Baby
Niagara Falls
Top Sergeant Mulligan
I'll Fix It
Father Steps Out
San Antonio Rose
An Apple in His Eye
They Met in Argentina
One Night in the Tropics
Mexican Spitfire Out West
A Trailer Tragedy
Millionaires in Prison
You Can't Fool Your Wife
Saps at Sea
Curtain Call
Primrose Path
Vigil in the Night
A Chump at Oxford
Mexican Spitfire
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Bachelor Mother
Man About Town
Five Came Back
Captain Fury
Hey! Hey! USA
Shall We Dance
Our Relations
An All American Toothache
Hot Money
Twin Triplets
Top Hat
In Love at 40
Bonnie Scotland
Thicker Than Water
Sing Sister Sing
Treasure Blues
Tit for Tat
Babes in Toyland
The Live Ghost
Kentucky Kernels
Opened by Mistake
Mike Fright
Ocean Swells
One-Horse Farmers
Them Thar Hills
Cockeyed Cavaliers
Another Wild Idea
Maid in Hollywood
Rough Necking
The Undie-World
Soup and Fish
Love on a Ladder
Hi'–Neighbor!
Next Week-End
Babes in the Goods
Bridal Bail
Sons of the Desert
Air Fright
Hold Your Temper
Backs to Nature
Keg o' My Heart
What Fur
Busy Bodies
Rhapsody in Brew
Beauty and the Bus
Morning Glory
The Midnight Patrol
The Druggist's Dilemma
One Track Minds
Diplomaniacs
Me and My Pal
King Kong
Nature in the Wrong
Maids a la Mode
Twice Two
Cynara
Mr. Bride
Sneak Easily
The Soilers
Pack Up Your Troubles
Show Business
A Slip at the Switch
Million Dollar Legs
What Price Hollywood?
Wild Babies!
Too Many Women
Strictly Unreliable
Just a Pain in the Parlor
The Music Box
Any Old Port!
Love Pains
Sealskins
On the Loose
The Kick-Off!
War Mamas
Scratch-As-Catch-Can
Mama Loves Papa
The Pajama Party
Come Clean
The Panic Is On
Sweepstakes
Let's Do Things
One of the Smiths
Haunted at Midnight
Playing at Politics
The Skulls
Laughing Gravy
The Pip from Pittsburg
Be Big!
The Chiselers
Only Saps Work
Los cazadores de osos
Night of Goblins
Dollar Dizzy
Men of the North
Let's Go Native
Fifty Million Husbands
Bear Shooters
Shivering and Shaking
Below Zero
The Night Life
Blotto
The Fighting Parson
The Real McCoy
Angora Love
Skirt Shy
The Hoose-Gow
Bacon Grabbers
They Go Boom!
Boxing Gloves
Snappy Sneezer
Men O' War
Leaping Love
Little Mother
Berth Marks
Double Whoopee
Movie Night
Big Business
That's My Wife
Wrong Again
A Pair of Tights
Must We Marry?
Two Tars
Captain Swagger
Should Married Men Go Home?
You're Darn Tootin'
Crooks Can't Win
Came the Dawn
Leave 'Em Laughing
The Battle of the Century
Call of the Cuckoo
The Second 100 Years
Sugar Daddies
College
With Love and Hisses
Fluttering Hearts
Love 'Em and Weep
Eve's Love Letters
Forgotten Sweeties
Duck Soup
Seeing the World
Are Brunettes Safe?
Bromo and Juliet
Thundering Fleas
Mighty Like a Moose
Unfriendly Enemies
Madame Sans Jane
Isn't Life Terrible?
A Ten-Minute Egg
Near Dublin
Zeb vs. Paprika
Postage Due
The Cowboy Sheik
Smithy
Mother's Joy
Do Me a Favor
The Janitor