Even with my somewhat limited knowledge of the Laurel and Hardy canon in 1980, I was especially excited to get to meet Rosina Lawrence when we went to the Hollywood ’80 Sons of the Desert convention. She was best-known to me as playing the lead role of Mary Roberts in one of L&H’s best films Way Out West. She also played schoolteacher Miss Jones in several of the Our Gang films including the Academy Award winner Bored of Education and their only feature film General Spanky.
I initially had her sign my little blue autograph book on July 31 when she attended the Our Gang reunion and the mixer beforehand. My Dad commented right off the bat how she was still quite beautiful and still sounded exactly as she had when she starred in the films – with her very soft-spoken tenor voice.
Rosina signs autographs at the Our Gang mixer
Apparently, I wasn’t quite satisfied with the autograph in my book, as she was one of the two celebrities (the other being Spanky) from whom I was to collect a signature on an actual 8×10 glossy, which I picked up in the dealer’s room. Amazingly, I happened to pick up an original photo with the press snipe still in place on the back; this photo I had never seen before and have never seen since. The cost was roughly $2.00. I had her sign it for me at the celebrity meet-and-greet that took place on August 2, our last full day of the convention. Unfortunately, since I was not yet a ‘professional’ autograph collector, I made the fatal mistake of having Rosina use a ballpoint pen to sign the photo – so what could have been a glorious piece is rather mundane.
Rosina humors this balmy young lad
Since the signature didn’t show up very well, she added another one to the top border
Dad snapped two similar photos of me getting Rosina’s signature, the one above and the far superior one below. I had Rosina sign this photo six years later when I met her again at the Valley Forge convention in 1986.
Rosina’s inviting smile made her highly approachable
Celebs from Hollywood ’80 will continue…
What a wonderful gift your father gave to you…The world of ‘The Sons of the Desert’ and the Hal Roach Studios!
The publicity photo from Ms. Lawrence is wonderful and probably unique. She had a very charming smile, didn’t she?
I hope you’ll do ‘a musing’ on John McCabe soon. His book on L&H has been in my collection for a very long time; along with William K. Everson’s “Complete Films of L&H” and Mr. Randy Skretvedt’s great volume “The Magic Behind the Movies”. I hope that Randy has a new edition on the way very soon.
It is about time for Mr. Brad F*rrell to assemble and author a book on Laurel and Hardy too! I hope a dog-eared copy adorns my bookshelf soon!
Dave Chasteen
February 10th, 2008