Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.twt.news From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: Hal Roach, 100, dies; pioneered film Date: Tue, 3 Nov 92 15:19:55 EST Message-ID: \SE A;NATION \SS (WS) \HD Hal Roach, 100, dies; pioneered film \BY ASSOCIATED PRESS \DT LOS ANGELES LOS ANGELES (AP) - Hal Roach, the pioneering movie producer who launched the careers of Harold Lloyd, Laurel and Hardy and other classic comedians, died Monday. He was 100. He died at his home in Bel-Air of pneumonia, said a friend, Richard Bann. Mr. Roach ran a comedy factory that produced hundreds of shorts including the Our Gang (Little Rascals) series. His career faded after World War II, but he remained a familiar figure in Hollywood. Receiving an honorary Academy Award in 1984, he recalled how his film crews in the silent days lunched on two sandwiches and bananas and the property man saved the banana skins. Then anytime a Hal Roach comedian was to do a pratfall, he slipped on a banana peel. "The great thing about it was that the bananas didn't cost me anything," Mr. Roach said. Born in Elmira, N.Y., on Jan. 14, 1892, he spent his early years on the move, mining for gold and running mule trains in Alaska and driving a truck in Seattle. He was 20 in 1912 when he landed in Los Angeles as the infant movie industry was starting to move West. Universal hired him as a stunt man, extra and bit player at $5 a day. When he inherited $3,000 in 1915, he started his own company, but it failed. He found a backer and concentrated on comedy shorts. In 1927 he teamed Laurel and Hardy, who became his greatest stars. "The best comedy comes from children," Mr. Roach once remarked. "Laurel and Hardy acted like children. 'Our Gang' was children acting like adults." "Our Gang" originated in 1922 and became immensely popular with the advent of sound. For copyright reasons it was renamed "The Little Rascals" on television. In the 1930s Mr. Roach moved Laurel and Hardy into features and made such major films as "Topper," "Of Mice and Men" and "One Million B.C." During World War II, his Culver City studio produced training and propaganda films for the government. This article is copyright 1992 The Washington Times. Redistribution to other sites is not permitted except by arrangement with American Cybercasting Corporation. For more information, send-email to usa@AmeriCast.COM