Harold Eugene "Hal" Roach Sr. (January 14, 1892 – November 2, 1992) was an American film and television producer, director, and actor from the 1910s to the 1990s, best known today for producing the Laurel and Hardy and Our Gang
Our Gang film comedy series.

Contents

1 Early life and career 2 Success as a comedy producer 3 World War II and television 4 Later years 5 Death 6 Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Early life and career[edit] Hal Roach
Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York, the grandson of Irish immigrants.[1] A presentation by the great American humorist Mark Twain impressed Roach as a young grade school student. After an adventurous youth that took him to Alaska, Hal Roach
Hal Roach arrived in Hollywood, California, in 1912 and began working as an extra in silent films. Upon coming into an inheritance, he began producing short film comedies in 1915 with his friend Harold Lloyd, who portrayed a character known as Lonesome Luke. In September 1916, Roach married actress Marguerite Nichols. They had two children, Hal Jr. (June 15, 1918 – March 29, 1972) and Margaret M. Roach (March 15, 1921 – November 22, 1964). After almost 25 years of marriage, Marguerite died in March 1941.[2] Roach married a second time on September 1, 1942, to Lucille Prin (January 20, 1913 – April 4, 1981), a Los Angeles secretary.[3] They were married at the on-base home of Colonel Franklin C. Wolfe and his wife at Wright-Patterson Airfield in Dayton, Ohio, where Roach was stationed at the time while serving as a major in the United States Army Air Corps.[3] Roach and Lucille had four children, Elizabeth Carson Roach (December 26, 1945 – September 5, 1946), Maria May Roach (born April 14, 1947),[4] Jeanne Alice Roach (born October 7, 1949), and Kathleen Bridget Roach (born January 29, 1951).[2] Success as a comedy producer[edit]

The Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios (1919–1963) in 1959

Unable to expand his studios in downtown Los Angeles because of zoning, Roach purchased what became the Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios from Harry Culver in Culver City, California. During the 1920s and 1930s, he employed Lloyd (his top money-maker until his departure in 1923), Will Rogers, Max Davidson, the Our Gang
Our Gang kids, Charley Chase, Harry Langdon, Thelma Todd, ZaSu Pitts, Lupe Vélez, Patsy Kelly
Patsy Kelly and, most famously, Laurel and Hardy. During the 1920s, Roach's biggest rival was producer Mack Sennett. In 1925, Roach hired away Sennett's supervising director, F. Richard Jones. Roach released his films through Pathé Exchange until 1927, when he went to Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He converted his silent movie studio to sound in late 1928 and began releasing talking shorts in early 1929. In the days before dubbing, foreign language versions of the Roach comedies were created by reshooting each film in the Spanish, French, and sometimes Italian and German languages. Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, and the Our Gang
Our Gang kids (some of whom had barely begun school) were required to recite the foreign dialogue phonetically, often working from blackboards hidden off camera.[citation needed] In 1931, with the release of the Laurel & Hardy film Pardon Us, Roach began producing occasional full-length features alongside the short product. Short subjects became less profitable and were phased out by 1936, save for the Our Gang
Our Gang series. In 1937, Roach conceived a joint business venture partnering with Vittorio Mussolini, son of fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, to form a production company called "R.A.M" (Roach and Mussolini). This proposed business alliance with Mussolini caused MGM to intervene and force Roach to pay his way out of the venture. This embarrassment, coupled with the underperformance of much of Roach's new feature product (save for Laurel & Hardy films and the odd non-L&H hit such as 1937's Topper), led to the end of Roach's relationship with MGM.[5] In May 1938, Roach ended his distribution contract with MGM, selling them the production rights to, and actors' contracts for Our Gang
Our Gang in the process, and signed with United Artists.[5] From 1937 to 1940, Roach concentrated on producing glossy features, abandoning low comedy almost completely. Most of his new films were either sophisticated farces (like Topper, 1937, and The Housekeeper's Daughter, 1939) or rugged action fare (like Captain Fury, 1939, and One Million B.C., 1940). Roach's one venture into heavy drama was the acclaimed Of Mice and Men (1939), in which actors Burgess Meredith
Burgess Meredith and Lon Chaney Jr.
Lon 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-length featurettes, running 40 to 50 minutes each. He contended that these "streamliners", as he called them, would be useful in double-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. United Artists
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 and Joe Sawyer, Johnny Downs, Jean Porter, Frank Faylen, William Bendix, George E. Stone, etc.). World War II and television[edit] Hal Roach, Sr. was called to active military duty in the Signal Corps in June 1942, at age 50, and the studio output he oversaw in uniform was converted from entertainment featurettes to military training films. The studios were leased to the U.S. Army Air Forces, and the First Motion Picture Unit
First Motion Picture Unit made 400 training, morale and propaganda films at "Fort Roach". Members of the unit included Ronald W. Reagan and Alan Ladd. After the war the government returned the studio to Roach, with millions of dollars of improvements.[6] In 1946, Hal Roach
Hal Roach resumed motion picture production, with former Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd co-star Bebe Daniels
Bebe Daniels as an associate producer. Roach was the first Hollywood producer to go to an all-color production schedule, making four streamliners in Cinecolor, 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
Hal Roach Jr., producing series such as The Stu Erwin Show, Steve Donovan, Western Marshal, Racket Squad, The Public Defender, The Gale Storm Show
The Gale Storm Show and My Little Margie, and independent producers leasing the facilities for such programs as Amos 'n' Andy, The Life of Riley
The Life of Riley and The 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.[7] Recognizing the value of his film library, the visionary Roach began in 1943 licensing revivals of his sound-era productions for theatrical and home-movie distribution. Roach's films were also early arrivals on television. His Laurel and Hardy
Laurel and Hardy comedies were a smashing success in television syndication, as were the Our Gang
Our Gang comedies originally produced from 1927-1938, for which in 1949 Roach had bought back the rights from MGM and re-branded for television as "The Little Rascals".[8] He thus became one of the first significant film producers to venture into television. Later years[edit] In 1955, Roach sold his interests in the production company to his son, Hal Roach
Hal Roach Jr., and retired from active production. Unfortunately, the younger Roach lacked much of his father's business acumen and soon lost the studio to creditors. It was finally shut down in 1961. For two more decades, Roach Sr. occasionally worked as a consultant on projects related to his past work. Extremely vigorous into an advanced age, Roach contemplated a comedy comeback at 96. In 1984, 92-year-old Roach was presented with an honorary Academy Award. Former Our Gang
Our Gang members Jackie Cooper
Jackie Cooper and George "Spanky" McFarland made the presentation to a flattered Roach, with McFarland thanking the producer for hiring him 53 years prior. Gang member Ernie Morrison was amongst the crowd and started the standing ovation for Hal Roach. On 21 January 1992, Roach was a guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, just days after his 100th birthday, where he recounted experiences with such stars as Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel and Jean Harlow; he even did a brief, energetic demonstration of a hula dance. In February 1992, Roach travelled to Berlin
Berlin to receive the honorary award of the Berlinale Kamera for Lifetime Achievement at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.[9] On March 30, 1992, Roach appeared at the 64th Academy Awards
64th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Billy Crystal. When Mr. Roach rose from the audience for 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." Death[edit] Hal Roach
Hal Roach died in his home in Bel Air, Los Angeles, from pneumonia, on November 2, 1992, at the age of 100 years. 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.[2] Roach is buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira, New York, where he grew up.[10] Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios[edit] The 14.5 acre (58,680 m²) studio once known as "The Lot of Fun", containing 55 buildings, was demolished in 1963 (despite tentative plans to reopen the facilities as "Landmark Studios"), after one last movie, Dime with a Halo (1963), with Barbara Luna, was made there in 1963 by Boris Sagal (to Sagal, the forlorn facility looked like a run-down Mexican city).[11] They were replaced by light industrial buildings, businesses, and an automobile dealership. Today, Culver City's "Landmark Street" runs down what was the middle of the old studio lot, with the two original sound stages having been located on the north side of Landmark Street, and the backlot/city street sets had been located at the eastern end of Landmark Street. A plaque sits in a small park across from the studio's location, placed there by The Sons of the Desert.[12] Most of the film library was bought in 1971 by a Canadian company that adopted the " Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios" name. It primarily handled the business of keeping the library in the public eye and licensing products based upon the classic film series. In 1983, Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios became one of the first studios to venture into the controversial business of film colorization. Buying a fifty percent interest in Wilson Markle's Colorization Inc, it began creating digitally colored versions of several Laurel and Hardy features, the Frank Capra
Frank Capra film It's a Wonderful Life
It's a Wonderful Life (1946), Night of the Living Dead (1968), and other popular films. In the 1980s, Hal Roach Studios produced Kids Incorporated
Kids Incorporated in association with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Roach's old distributor in the 1930s. During the 1980s, Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios distributed its classic film library, as well as films in the public domain, on home video. 1986 saw the merger of Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios with the production firm of Robert Halmi into Qintex Entertainment, named after Australian investor Qintex. Under this name, Qintex collaborated with Universal Television
Universal Television to distribute The New Leave It To Beaver in syndication and the Canadian drama T. and T., starring Mr. T, with Canadian animation house Nelvana. However, Qintex's Australian parent ended up collapsing under a crushing debtload, forcing Qintex Entertainment into bankruptcy. In the years that followed, the Roach company changed hands several more times. Independent television producer Robert Halmi (who had merged his company with Roach) bought the company in the early 1990s after the bankruptcy of Qintex, and it became RHI Entertainment. A short time later, this successor company was acquired by Hallmark Entertainment in 1994, but Halmi, Robert Halmi Jr. and affiliates of Kelso & Company reacquired the company in 2006. Hallmark Entertainment was absorbed into RHI Entertainment (with Vivendi
Vivendi as the current home video output partner). In that same decade, a new incarnation of Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios (operated by the Roach Trust) was established, and today this new version of the company has released classic films on DVD, many of which are from Roach's own archival prints of his films, while others are public domain titles mastered from the best available 35 mm
35 mm elements. References[edit]

^ "Hal Roach". Laurelandhardycentral.com. Archived from the original on June 6, 2012. Retrieved June 13, 2012.  ^ a b c "`Our Gang` Creator Hal Roach
Hal Roach Dies At 100". Retrieved 2016-09-11.  ^ a b "Movie Producer Married at 50 To Secretary, 29". The Coshocton Tribune. Ohio. September 1, 1942. p. 5.  ^ "Scott Carpenter". IMDb. Retrieved 2016-09-11.  ^ a b Ward, Richard Lewis (2005). A History of Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press. Pg. 97–102, 116, 225. ISBN 0-8093-2637-X. ^ Betancourt, Mark (March 2012). "World War II: The Movie". Air & Space. Retrieved September 27, 2013.  ^ "Hollywood Is Humming", Time, October 29, 1951. ^ "Little Rascals History". Retrieved 2017-02-02.  ^ "Berlinale: 1992 Prize Winners". berlinale.de. Retrieved March 27, 2011.  ^ Hal Roach
Hal Roach at Find a Grave ^ "Archived copy". Archived from the original on May 31, 2014. Retrieved May 30, 2014. [not in citation given] ^ Culver City History: Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios, culvercity.org. Retrieved August 23, 2008

Further reading[edit]

Richard Lewis Ward. A History of the Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 2005. Craig Calman. 100 Years of Brodies with Hal Roach. BearManor Media, Albany, GA, 2014, 2017 Harjinder Singh. "Hollywood Pioneer: The Life and Times of Hal Roach" Leprosy Association of Guru Nanak, Santa Monica, CA, 2016

External links[edit]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Hal Roach.

Hal Roach
Hal Roach on IMDb Detailed Roach filmography on The Lucky Corner Our Gang
Our Gang website The Charlie Hall Picture Archive Roach filmography and list of publications at FilmReference.com Roach's 1992 appearance on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno Former location of Hal Roach
Hal Roach Studios as seen today on YouTube

v t e

Academy Honorary Award

1928–1950

Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. / Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin (1928) Walt Disney
Walt Disney (1932) Shirley Temple
Shirley Temple (1934) D. W. Griffith
D. W. Griffith (1935) The March of Time
The March of Time / W. Howard Greene and Harold Rosson (1936) Edgar Bergen
Edgar Bergen / W. Howard Greene / Museum of Modern Art
Museum of Modern Art Film Library / Mack Sennett
Mack Sennett (1937) J. Arthur Ball / Walt Disney
Walt Disney / Deanna Durbin
Deanna Durbin and Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney / Gordon Jennings, Jan Domela, Devereaux Jennings, Irmin Roberts, Art Smith, Farciot Edouart, Loyal Griggs, Loren L. Ryder, Harry D. Mills, Louis Mesenkop, Walter Oberst / Oliver T. Marsh and Allen Davey / Harry Warner
Harry Warner (1938) Douglas Fairbanks
Douglas Fairbanks / Judy Garland
Judy Garland / William Cameron Menzies / Motion Picture Relief Fund (Jean Hersholt, Ralph Morgan, Ralph Block, Conrad Nagel)/ Technicolor Company (1939) Bob Hope
Bob Hope / Nathan Levinson (1940) Walt Disney, William Garity, John N. A. Hawkins, and the RCA Manufacturing Company / Leopold Stokowski
Leopold Stokowski and his associates / Rey Scott / British Ministry of Information (1941) Charles Boyer
Charles Boyer / Noël Coward
Noël Coward / Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (1942) George Pal
George Pal (1943) Bob Hope
Bob Hope / Margaret O'Brien
Margaret O'Brien (1944) Republic Studio, Daniel J. Bloomberg, and the Republic Studio Sound Department / Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger / The House I Live In / Peggy Ann Garner (1945) Harold Russell
Harold Russell / Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier / Ernst Lubitsch
Ernst Lubitsch / Claude Jarman Jr. (1946) James Baskett
James Baskett / Thomas Armat, William Nicholas Selig, Albert E. Smith, and George Kirke Spoor
George Kirke Spoor / Bill and Coo / Shoeshine (1947) Walter Wanger
Walter Wanger / Monsieur Vincent
Monsieur Vincent / Sid Grauman
Sid Grauman / Adolph Zukor
Adolph Zukor (1948) Jean Hersholt
Jean Hersholt / Fred Astaire
Fred Astaire / Cecil B. DeMille
Cecil B. DeMille / The Bicycle Thief (1949) Louis B. Mayer
Louis B. Mayer / George Murphy
George Murphy / The Walls of Malapaga (1950)

1951–1975

Gene Kelly
Gene Kelly / Rashomon
Rashomon (1951) Merian C. Cooper
Merian C. Cooper / Bob Hope
Bob Hope / Harold Lloyd
Harold Lloyd / George Mitchell / Joseph M. Schenck / Forbidden Games
Forbidden Games (1952) 20th Century-Fox Film Corporation / Bell & Howell Company / Joseph Breen / Pete Smith (1953) Bausch & Lomb Optical Company / Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye / Kemp Niver / Greta Garbo / Jon Whiteley
Jon Whiteley / Vincent Winter / Gate of Hell (1954) Samurai I: Musashi Miyamoto (1955) Eddie Cantor
Eddie Cantor (1956) Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers
Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers / Gilbert M. "Broncho Billy" Anderson / Charles Brackett / B. B. Kahane (1957) Maurice Chevalier
Maurice Chevalier (1958) Buster Keaton
Buster Keaton / Lee de Forest
Lee de Forest (1959) Gary Cooper
Gary Cooper / Stan Laurel
Stan Laurel / Hayley Mills
Hayley Mills (1960) William L. Hendricks / Fred L. Metzler / Jerome Robbins
Jerome Robbins (1961) William J. Tuttle
William J. Tuttle (1964) Bob Hope
Bob Hope (1965) Yakima Canutt
Yakima Canutt / Y. Frank Freeman
Y. Frank Freeman (1966) Arthur Freed (1967) John Chambers / Onna White (1968) Cary Grant
Cary Grant (1969) Lillian Gish
Lillian Gish / Orson Welles
Orson Welles (1970) Charlie Chaplin
Charlie Chaplin (1971) Charles S. Boren / Edward G. Robinson
Edward G. Robinson (1972) Henri Langlois
Henri Langlois / Groucho Marx
Groucho Marx (1973) Howard Hawks
Howard Hawks / Jean Renoir
Jean Renoir (1974) Mary Pickford
Mary Pickford (1975)

1976–2000

Margaret Booth (1977) Walter Lantz
Walter Lantz / Laurence Olivier
Laurence Olivier / King Vidor
King Vidor / Museum of Modern Art Department of Film (1978) Hal Elias / Alec Guinness
Alec Guinness (1979) Henry Fonda
Henry Fonda (1980) Barbara Stanwyck
Barbara Stanwyck (1981) Mickey Rooney
Mickey Rooney (1982) Hal Roach
Hal Roach (1983) James Stewart
James Stewart / National Endowment for the Arts
National Endowment for the Arts (1984) Paul Newman
Paul Newman / Alex North (1985) Ralph Bellamy
Ralph Bellamy (1986) Eastman Kodak
Kodak Company / National Film Board of Canada
National Film Board of Canada (1988) Akira Kurosawa
Akira Kurosawa (1989) Sophia Loren
Sophia Loren / Myrna Loy
Myrna Loy (1990) Satyajit Ray
Satyajit Ray (1991) Federico Fellini
Federico Fellini (1992) Deborah Kerr
Deborah Kerr (1993) Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni (1994) Kirk Douglas
Kirk Douglas / Chuck Jones
Chuck Jones (1995) Michael Kidd
Michael Kidd (1996) Stanley Donen
Stanley Donen (1997) Elia Kazan
Elia Kazan (1998) Andrzej Wajda
Andrzej Wajda (1999) Jack Cardiff
Jack Cardiff / Ernest Lehman (2000)

2001–present

Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier / Robert Redford
Robert Redford (2001) Peter O'Toole
Peter O'Toole (2002) Blake Edwards
Blake Edwards (2003) Sidney Lumet
Sidney Lumet (2004) Robert Altman
Robert Altman (2005) Ennio Morricone
Ennio Morricone (2006) Robert F. Boyle (2007) Lauren Bacall
Lauren Bacall / Roger Corman
Roger Corman / Gordon Willis
Gordon Willis (2009) Kevin Brownlow / Jean-Luc Godard
Jean-Luc Godard / Eli Wallach
Eli Wallach (2010) James Earl Jones
James Earl Jones / Dick Smith (2011) D. A. Pennebaker
D. A. Pennebaker / Hal Needham
Hal Needham / George Stevens Jr.
George Stevens Jr. (2012) Angela Lansbury
Angela Lansbury / Steve Martin
Steve Martin / Piero Tosi (2013) Jean-Claude Carrière
Jean-Claude Carrière / Hayao Miyazaki
Hayao Miyazaki / Maureen O'Hara
Maureen O'Hara (2014) Spike Lee
Spike Lee / Gena Rowlands
Gena Rowlands (2015) Jackie Chan
Jackie Chan / Lynn Stalmaster / Anne V. Coates / Frederick Wiseman (2016) Charles Burnett / Owen Roizman / Donald Sutherland
Donald Sutherland / Agnès Varda (2017)

Authority control

WorldCat Identities VIAF: 19877882 LCCN: n50051034 ISNI: 0000 0000 6309 0729 GND: 119274116 SUDOC: 09628885X BNF: cb140106686 (data) BNE: XX1547954 SNAC: w6ks8c0m