Hal Roach Pics

Hal

Roach

Elmira, New York

Capricorn

02 November 1992

Los Angeles, California

Pneumonia

Male

American

Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York in 1892. After working as, among other things, mule skinner, wrangler and gold prospector, he wound up in Hollywood and began picking up jobs as an extra in comedies, where he met comedian Harold Lloyd in 1913 in San Diego. Roach came into a small inheritance and began producing, directing and writing a series of short film comedies under the banner, Phun Philms, starring Lloyd around 1915. Initially these were abysmal, but with effort, the quality improved enough to be nominally financed and distributed by Pathe and the Roach/Lloyd team proved quite successful after the creation of Lloyd`s now-famous `Glasses Character,` enabling Roach to start his own production company and eventually bought his own studio. Hal Roach Productions became a unique entity in Hollywood; it operated as a sort of paternalistic boutique studio, releasing a surprising number of wildly popular shorts series and a handful of features. Quality was seldom compromised and his employees were treated as his most valuable asset. Roach`s relationship with his biggest earner, Harold Lloyd, was increasingly acrimonious after 1920. After achieving enormous success with features, Lloyd had achieved superstar status by the standards of Roaring Twenties and wanted his independence. The two men severed ties with Roach maintaining re-issue rights for Lloyd`s shorts for the remainder of the decade. Despite facing the prospect of losing his biggest earner, Roach was already preoccupied by the cultivating his new kiddie series, Our Gang, which was an immediate hit with the public. By the time he was 25, Roach was wealthy and increasingly away from his studio, traveling extensively across Europe. By the early 1920s he had eclipsed Mack Sennett as the King of Comedy and created many of the most memorable comic series of all time, even by today`s standards. These include the team of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, Charley Chase, ``Snub` Pollard` and especially the long running Our Gang (AKA "The Little Rascals" in TV distribution) series. After his studio`s distributor, Pathe, disintegrated in the U.S. after it`s domestic representative Paul Brunet returned to France in 1927, Roach was able to secure an even better deal with MGM (his key competitor, Mack Sennett, was also distributed by Pathe, but was unable to land a deal, ultimately declaring bankruptcy in 1933). For the next eleven years Roach shored up MGM`s bottom line, although the deal was probably more beneficial to Roach. In the mid-1930`s Roach became inexplicably enamored with Benito Mussolini, and sought to secure a business alliance with the fascist government`s recently completed film complex, Cinecitta. After Roach asked for (and received) assurances from Mussolini that Italy wasn`t about to seek sanction against the Jews, the two men formed RAM ("Roach And Mussolini") Productions--- a move that appalled the powers at MGM parent Leow`s Inc. These events coincided with Roach selling off Our Gang to MGM and committing himself solely to feature film production. In September 1937, Il Duce`s son, Vittorio Mussolini visited Hollywood and his studio threw a lavish party celebrating his 21st birthday. Soon afterward, the Italian government took on an increasingly anti-Semitic stance and in retribution, Leow`s chairman, Nicholas Schenck canceled his distribution deal. He signed an adequate deal with United Artists in May 1938 and redeemed his previous record of feature misfires with a string of big hits: Topper (1937) (and it`s lesser sequels), the prestigious Of Mice and Men (1939) and, most significantly, One Million B.C. (1940), which became the most profitable movie of the year. Despite the near-unanimous condemnation by his industry peers, Roach stubbornly refused to re-examine his attitudes over his dealings with Mussolini, even in the aftermath of WW2 (he proudly displayed an autographed portrait of the dictator in his home up until his death). His tried and true formula for success was tested by audience demands for longer feature-length productions, and by the early 1940`s he was forced to try his hand at making low budget full-length screwball comedies, musicals and dramas, although he still kept turning out two-reel comedies, he tagged as "streamliners," they failed to catch on with post-war audiences. By the 1950s he was producing mainly for television. He made a stab at retirement but his son, Hal Jr., proved an inept businessman and drove the studio to the brink of bankruptcy by 1959. Roach returned and focused on facilities leasing and managing the TV rights of his film catalog. In 1983 his company developed the first successful digital colorization process. Roach then became a producer for many TV series on the Disney Channel, and his company still produces most of their films and videos.

Harry Eugene Roach

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1892-01-14

Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach, Sr. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer and director from the 1910s to the 1990s.

Producer, Other Crew, Writer

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