Since today marks the 117th birthday of Stan Laurel, I thought it rather fitting that my posting for the day describes my recent visit with Stan’s daughter, the lovely Lois Laurel Hawes. After Bob had taken off for home to nurse his ailments, I took a short nap at the hotel and waited for Jimmy to pick me up. After stopping off for a quick bite to eat, we headed directly to Northridge to Lois’ place. This was my second visit with her since she had been to this location, the first being in October of ’05. This was one was much longer as we ended up staying for nearly five hours.
She started off by showing us some personal belongings of her father that she had recently recovered from a generous fan. Shortly before Stan’s death, his private housekeeper had stolen some of his personal items. Years later many of these relics showed up in a yard sale and they were purchased by a huge Laurel and Hardy fan. Once he found out that these items had originally been stolen from Stan, he contacted Lois and rightfully returned them to her. Among the treasures were Stan’s bible, a lighter given to him by the Water Rats, a key to Atlantic City, a pin from his appearance on “This Is Your LIfe,” his SL cufflinks, and his medic alert necklace. Needless to say, it was really cool to handle and admire these relics of history.
Stan’s key to Atlantic City
Stan’s Bible, doubltessly embossed “Rev. Stan Laurel” as a joke
Stan’s Water Rat lighter
Jimmy and I then spent a good portion of our visit browsing through Lois’ many photo albums and scrapbooks, using Jimmy’s scanner to make images of many rare, unseen photos and documents. All the while, we chatted with Lois about everything from memories of her Dad, our website “The Wax Apple,” to her life at home with her granddaughter Cassidy and her great-grandkids, Cassidy’s twins. Cassidy herself also made an appearance and its always nice to see her.
Lois had recently received a gift from the Laurel and Hardy Forum of the set of Universal Laurel and Hardy DVD’s from England. I thought it would be nice to snap the photo below and post it on the forum for all to see, which I did upon my return from the trip.
All in all, we had a wonderful visit with Lois, so wonderful in fact that we cut it extremely close time-wise and were late meeting up with some others for dinner. Although I’ve known Lois for many years, it has only been since this February visit that we have begun exchanging phone calls once or twice a week. What a pleasure to be friends with Stan Laurel’s daughter, an extremely kind, knowledgeable, and very sharp lady to boot!
Next: after many months, my Hollywood ’07 postings will conclude…
I enjoyed the article and pictures. My wife is a big Laurel and hardy fan! My daughter just painted a beautiful black and white Oil paiting (really nice) of Laurel & Hardy….I would love to get Lois a copy. What’s neat is I live in Agoura Hills and I know she is in Northridge. I was wondering if I could get her address to send it to her or to visit her and allow my wife to present it to her personally. Hoping you can help….Thanks! Barry
Barry Lubin
December 26th, 2010