Novelist/biographer Simon Louvish has earned a name for himself by authoring lengthy, in-depth biographies of some of the major figures of Hollywood's Golden Age of comedy: W.C. Fields, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, and a forthcoming volume on Mack Sennett.  Stan and Ollie: The Roots of Comedy: The Double Life of Laurel and Hardy (I don't know how else to punctuate a book with two subtitles) is on par with Louvish's other works: exhaustive, informative, solidly researched, but lacking in revelations and somewhat ponderous to read.

This is not the book to purchase if you're interested in careful analysis of L&H's film career.  It is in this area that Louvish's editorial judgment is open to question.  Even a casual viewing of L&H's early films reveals that Stan Laurel's screen character took longer to develop than Oliver Hardy's, but Louvish contends the opposite was the case.  He cites a deeply flawed film such as BONNIE SCOTLAND as one "that has stood the test of time," and attempts to find a profundity in L&H's use of silence on the level of Samuel Beckett or Harold Pinter.  Louvish's tendency to over-analyze or mis-analyze can be a pretentious annoyance to longtime fans, as can his humorlessly verbose style.

Stan and Ollie is nevertheless the most informative source on the personal lives of Laurel and Hardy.  Earlier authors such as McCabe and Skretvedt touched upon some of the painful and sordid details of L&H's troubled marriages and business affairs, but Louish fleshes out such matters in great detail.  For this, the book gets high marks for humanizing Stan and Babe more than previous biographers.  Also to his credit, Louvish is not sensational in his approach, but instead presents rounded portrayals of two men with common and understandable human flaws.

It is perhaps not the first book you should read on Laurel and Hardy, but all fans read it at some point.  Even if you find yourself skimming through it to get to the good parts. - JL