You might sometimes catch me bragging about joining the Sons of the Desert at such a young age. Although, there seems to be a resurgence of young people taking interest in Laurel and Hardy overseas, in America the Sons have aged right along with me. Here, people my age are still considered the “youngsters.” This is unfortunate on many levels, one of which is I think we will watch the Sons simply fade away here in America. There simply is no active effort to recruit and foster the younger fans to take the helm of the club as the old-timers retire from active duty.
Anyway, I’m totally off the subject already. The fact is that I would bet you a week’s wages that I am the only person walking this earth under the age of forty who has met “Buckwheat,” Lucille Hardy, Spanky McFarland, Jacquie Lyn, Della Lind, Jean Darling, been to Hal Roach‘s house, and stood in the Liberty alley. These are just a few examples of how I was rewarded for getting into the Sons at such a young age.
The first convention I attended was Hollywood ’80. I was eight years old and bouncing off the walls, taking in as much as I could at this star-studded event. Just travelling to California was thrilling enough, but being surrounded by fellow fans, celebrities, movies, film locations – all of this put the convention over the top for me.
I had met and acquired the autographs of a couple of celebrities even prior ot this (I’ll tell you about these later), but the efforts at this convention were my first deliberate and purposeful attempts at being a true autograph collector. Unfortunately, I was not quite tuned into the finer points of collecting…or meeting celebrities. For the most part, I did not have any of the celebrities at this convention sign photos, only a child’s autograph album. And I only had my photo taken with a small percentage of them.
The first signature in my album belongs to T. Marvin Hatley. Now considered a legend to most Sons, Marvin composed a good deal of incidental music played in the boys’ films – including Laurel and Hardy’s famous theme song Ku-Ku (or The Cuckoo Song). He was even nominated for an Acamdemy Award for his scoring of their films Way Out West and Block-Heads.
I don’t remember a lot about Marvin except for his incredible one-man-band performaces at the following convention in Detroit 1982…and I distinctly remember getting this autograph in 1980. He was sitting alone in the assembly room at the Los Angeles Hilton getting ready to participate in the Technical Stars Panel when I meekly approached him with my Dad standing over my shoulder. He asked me to spell out my name so he could properly inscribe it. I remember mumbling my way through the spelling – to the disdain of my Dad.
All who knew Marvin well absolutely adored him. I regret that I did not have a chance to really get to know him, but I am proud of the fact that I did meet him and that he was the first person you could say I ‘hounded’ for an autograph.
The autographs of Hollywood ’80 will continue…
Well, I’m under 40 but I never met Buckwheat…so I guess you’re right.
Jimmy
September 26th, 2006
Yes, I took you into consideration when I picked the criteria!
Brad
September 26th, 2006