Stage veteran Esther Howard was in her late thirties when she made her first films for Vitaphone in 1930, but most movie fans know her as the fiftyish matron in dozens of features and short subjects of the 1940s. She worked with Laurel & Hardy only once, as the matrimonially minded coquette in The Big Noise (1944).
Esther Howard was born in Helena, Montana on April 4, 1892. She worked in a succession of stage plays from 1917, and married one of her leading men — who committed suicide in 1926 after the failure of his latest show. She never remarried, so it’s a poignant coincidence that she went on to play eligible widows in film after film.
The actress herself cited her earliest motion picture as Vice Squad, a 1931 Paramount feature; she had already worked in two Vitaphone shorts. The film-comedy community was close-knit, and it wasn’t unusual for members of one studio’s stock company to find additional work at Hal Roach, Mack Sennett, RKO, Columbia, Educational, or Universal. After playing a society dowager in a single Hal Roach two-reeler (Todd and Kelly’s The Misses Stooge, 1935), Esther Howard co-starred in an Andy Clyde comedy at Columbia. For years thereafter, whenever the script called for a feminine foil for folksy Andy, the part usually went to Esther Howard. Opposite Clyde, she alternated between playing the sunny, flirty local widow and the shrewish, battle-ax wife. On a couple of occasions she was the flirty widow who became the battle-ax wife! Many of these shorts were directed by Jules White, who had little regard for femininity when it came to physical humor, so Esther gamely participated in the vase-smashing, head-bumping slapstick. It was common practice for two-reelers to cast ingénues who were much younger than the star comedians (Dorothy Granger opposite Leon Errol, Anne Jeffreys opposite El Brendel, Jean Willes opposite Bert Wheeler, etc.), but the more mature Esther Howard was the same age as Andy Clyde (and Oliver Hardy) and made her character’s flirty behavior more credible. Considering all of her Columbia work, it’s surprising that she appeared in only one Three Stooges comedy, Idle Roomers (she’s terrorized by a wild “wolfman” and her hair stands on end).
Many of her most familiar roles in feature films date from the mid-1940s. Her most famous appearances are with Laurel & Hardy in The Big Noise and as the worldly waitress in the film-noir cult classic Detour, but she was capable of a wider range of characters. Her portrayal of a dowdy old bag “with a face like a bucket of mud” in the Dick Powell mystery Murder, My Sweet was so successful that she burlesqued it in another RKO feature, Dick Tracy vs. Cueball (as “Filthy Flora,” every bit as grubby as her name suggests!). She could also play sympathetic roles, like the bereaved, justice-minded friend in the RKO noir Born to Kill. Perhaps the best showcase for her versatility is The Falcon’s Alibi, in which she plays a giggly, flighty socialite who turns out to be a brassy, tough-talking confidence woman!
Esther Howard’s career slowed in the late 1940s, when studios were making fewer movies and hiring fewer character players. Her appearances continued to be memorable: the gabby waitress in Song of the Thin Man, Kirk Douglas’s mother in The Champion, a prison inmate in Caged. She ended her screen career as she had started it: in short subjects. By 1952 Columbia was doing remakes of older shorts, and hiring the original actors to appear in a few new scenes. Esther Howard reported for duty opposite Andy Clyde and Joe DeRita. She was now 60 years old, and with television’s faster-paced production changing the face of Hollywood moviemaking, she retired. She remained a Hollywood resident until suffering a fatal heart attack in 1965.
Esther Howard was very much like Mae Busch: a gifted actress who could play any part the script called for. It’s fortunate that she brought this talent to the world of Laurel & Hardy.
Copyright © 2010
by Scott MacGillivray.
Many of Laurel & Hardy's co-stars were comedians in their
own right, often with stage experience. These supporting players became
known to Hollywood's two-reel comedy community and were featured in the
short-subject and full-length products of various studios. A case in
point is Eddie Borden.
Eddie Borden's sharp facial features, toothy smile,
variety-show experience, and occasional continental roles may suggest a
background in the United Kingdom, but he was American, born on May 1,
1888 in Deer Lodge, Tennessee.
Borden played comic roles on the stage, and by the early 1930s
the slight, smirking Borden was playing breezy comic-relief roles in
melodramas. Borden's vaudeville persona can best be observed in a
famous "Hollywood on Parade" short of 1933. The premise of the short
has Eddie in a wax museum where the exhibits come to life, and where
"Betty Boop" (Helen Kane) is attacked by vampire Bela Lugosi. Eddie is
dressed in the classically loud vaudeville manner, with a prominent
hat, checkered coat, and cigar. He notices the attractive statue of
"Betty Boop, the girl that Max Fleischer made." Borden pauses. "Well,
if he can make her," he reasons, "I guess I can... go over and say
hello."
Borden never made it big as a comedy star — like many
vaudevillians, he had good timing but an unexceptional comic character.
It wasn't until 1936, when he was cast in Laurel & Hardy's costume
comedy The
Bohemian Girl, that Borden became noticed as a character actor.
Fred Allen recalled that Borden once did an “English act” in
vaudeville, which explains Borden’s casting in Bohemian Girl —
he's the mannered fop who has his fortune told by our heroes ("What a
novelty," he murmurs in a convincing, cultured drawl). Exquisitely
attired in embroidered raiment, and fitted with lorgnette and jewels,
Borden is mistaken for a woman by the comedians, and reacts in
scandalized surprise.
Eddie had small roles in three more Laurel & Hardy
features. In The
Flying Deuces he's a befuddled legionnaire, whom Stan and Ollie
attack with wine bottles. A Chump at Oxford
has Eddie wearing a sheet and playing mysterious hand games with Stan
(this must have taken some rehearsals, because Eddie's movements
synchronize beautifully with Stan's). Borden opens Saps at Sea, as
the latest crazed employee of the Sharp & Pierce horn manufacturing
company.
In 1941 Eddie Borden began appearing in features for RKO Radio
Pictures, and he remained there for years. His trim, angular face and
frame gave him a withered, delicate appearance, which became familiar
to moviegoers. He made small but telling contributions to the films he
appeared in, among them Obliging Young Lady (as
an
enthusiastic
bird watcher), Mexican
Spitfire's
Blessed Event (as a Canadian backwoodsman who cheerily delivers
a telegram, and gets a door in the face for his trouble), Ghost Ship (as a
crew member aboard a murder-haunted vessel), and The Falcon's Alibi
(as a friendly postman who unwittingly thwarts a pair of crooks). Eddie
Borden continued to play bits into the 1950s, and passed away in
Hollywood on July 1, 1955 at the age of 67.
Although he may be better known as a dependable background
player, Eddie Borden was also a dependable comic who made welcome
appearances in Laurel & Hardy films.
Copyright © 2010 by Scott
MacGillivray.
The career of a Hollywood ingénue could be compared to that of an athlete. She may enjoy several years of prominence, but she may not remain at the top of her profession for more than a decade or so. But here is a notable exception. One of Laurel & Hardy’s co-stars not only outlasted many of her contemporaries, but she had two flourishing screen careers (and even dabbled in a third!) over three decades. She appeared as a damsel in distress in Any Old Port, and in the title role of The Bohemian Girl. Laurel & Hardy fans know her as Jacqueline Wells.
Born Jacqueline Brown on August 30, 1914 in Denver, Colorado, she was a promising juvenile actress who was featured in stage plays at the Pasadena Community Playhouse. This theater was regularly attended by movie talent scouts, and many actors at Pasadena received offers from the studios. Using the professional name of Jacqueline Wells, she worked in two-reel comedies at the Hal Roach studios during the 1931–32 season, with Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, and The Boy Friends. She didn’t remain with Roach; indeed, many of Roach’s personnel on both sides of the camera were laid off by Roach’s business manager as a cost-cutting move in 1932.
Many novice screen actresses were first tried in westerns and serials as a practical screen test, to gauge their ability and appeal. Jacqueline Wells also went this route when Universal offered her a contract. She appeared in serials under the name of Diane Duval. The career of Diane Duval didn’t last long, because casting directors began to take notice of Jacqueline Wells. One of her more prominent roles was in Monogram’s The Loud-Speaker (1934), as an actress trying to get along in New York. Monogram had not yet become established as a “budget” studio; it was one of many independent studios that released its films widely to stay competitive with the “major” film companies, and her ingénue lead in The Loud-Speaker gave Wells some valuable exposure. That same year she was named one of the “WAMPAS Baby Stars,” an annual selection of starlets considered by exhibitors as good bets for stardom.
The
Bohemian Girl
(1936), co-starring Jacqueline Wells,
climaxed her freelance career. She then signed a contract with Columbia
Pictures. Columbia made a
few
important films each year, but the backbone of its organization was a
steady
stream of “B” pictures and short subjects for neighborhood theaters.
Wells was
the ingenue in many of Columbia’s
unpretentious
but
entertaining features like When G-Men Step In
and Paid to
Dance.
Most Columbia contract players were called upon to appear in anything. In order to gain valuable experience before the cameras, they’d appear in a big feature film on Monday, a little feature film on Tuesday, a serial on Wednesday, or a two-reel comedy on Thursday. It was all in a day’s work for Columbia’s stock company. The seasoned Jacqueline Wells managed to steer clear of Columbia’s slapstick shorts but, because she knew the ropes, she was sometimes recruited for screen tests, to recite sample scenes opposite neophyte actors. The hectic Columbia workplace, and the studio’s failing to promote her to bigger productions, may have been why she Columbia in 1939 to resume freelancing. Jacqueline Wells’s last credit was Her First Romance, starring another former Columbia stalwart, Edith Fellows. It was rather ironic that Jacqueline Wells had come full circle in only seven years: Her First Romance found her back where she started, at Monogram.
The astute Jacqueline Wells may have recognized that ten years of hard work hadn’t made her a star. She joined the Warner Brothers studio and adopted a new name: Julie Bishop. Still in her twenties, she was young enough to play ingenues and was promoted as a new face. She was cast in Warner product for the next several years, and her more famous credits include Action in the North Atlantic and Rhapsody in Blue. During her vogue as a Warner star, her older films were reissued to cash in on her popularity, and her “Jacqueline Wells” billing was revised to read “Julie Bishop.”
In 1946 the major studios released many of their contract players, Julie Bishop among them. She found work almost immediately at the smaller, independent studios. In 1952 she landed the feminine lead in the Bob Cummings sitcom My Hero, and she continued to work in movies and TV through 1957. She also appeared in regional stage productions.
In private life the former Jacqueline Wells pursued a wide variety of personal interests in California. She was a prolific painter, a licensed pilot, and the president of a national scholarship association. On August 30, 2001 — her 87th birthday — she succumbed to pneumonia.
We applaud the professionalism of this talented actress, “a rose by any other name.”
Copyright © 2010 by Scott MacGillivray.
SECOND EDITION,
REVISED AND EXPANDEDScott MacGillivray’s Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward was the first book to fully chronicle the later careers of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, and everything that followed, from theatrical reissues to home videos. If you enjoyed the book the first time, you’ll like this new edition even more. The author has expanded the original text by more than 50 percent, to include new insights, new information, and new discoveries in Laurel & Hardy history, never before published. (Which Laurel & Hardy comedy of the 1940s was withheld from release for almost four years? Which “forties” movie was their all-time biggest hit? Which movie was almost shut down by federal intervention?) You’ll read much more about Stan and Ollie’s unrealized projects, including five more feature films, two TV series, and two Broadway shows. A must-read for Stan and Ollie’s fans everywhere, Laurel & Hardy: From the Forties Forward is better than ever!
“What a marvelous
book! I read it straight through, getting happier by the minute to
think that
more and more material is being set into history about the boys. The
writing is
so lucid — and
that in this day of film books that aren’t is high praise.
Really wonderful!” — JOHN
McCABE, Laurel & Hardy’s authorized biographer
“Scott MacGillivray has accomplished something that most historians can only dream of doing: overturning the conventional wisdom… he rewrites the book on the movie-comedy team.” — BOSTON HERALD
“All the world’s admirers of Laurel & Hardy will now forever be indebted to Scott MacGillivray for providing so much new information about two of the world’s most beloved figures.” — STEVE ALLEN
“Displays a knowledge and affection for its subject that one would be hard pressed to find in most academic texts.” — CLASSIC IMAGES
“To write a book about screen performers as well covered as these two and still present a wealth of heretofore unpublished information is quite an accomplishment.” — FILM QUARTERLY
“MacGillivray takes great pains to provide the context necessary to reassess these films after so many years of knee-jerk dismissal and neglect… His book will remain the definitive study of the late years of the Laurel and Hardy phenomenon.” — ARNE FOGEL, Minnesota Public RadioOrder the paperback from Barnes and Noble
Order the hardcover from Barnes
and Noble
You don't think of "leading men" in a Laurel & Hardy movie. With Stan and Ollie as the center of attention, the male leads consisted of either a traditional "juvenile" role or an incidental romantic presence.
Only rarely did we see an actor who shared equally in Laurel & Hardy's dialogue, plot situations, and comic routines. In the 1930s, it was Dennis King (The Devil's Brother). In the 1940s, it was Bob Bailey (Jitterbugs and The Dancing Masters).
Robert Bainter Bailey was born on
Bob Bailey answered the call from
Bailey worked so well with Laurel & Hardy that he was hired for their next film, The Dancing Masters. His role of "Grant Lawrence," boy inventor, was neither as demanding nor as prominent as his work in Jitterbugs, but he tried his best with low comedy. In the aftermath of a ginger-ale-spraying sequence, Bailey's half-sheepish, half-snarling "I got my pants wet!" is a comic highlight.
Bob Bailey had superb dialogue
skills but limited visual "business"; his few
moments of facial mugging in The Dancing
Masters are amusing but mechanical, as though he was
uncomfortable in broad comedy. 20th Century-Fox took the hint and
turned him into "Robert Bailey," promising young dramatic actor.
Throughout 1944 Bailey had moderate to minor roles in five 20th
Century-Fox features. He lacked the chiseled profile and rugged
physique of the typical
In 1955 CBS Radio revived one of
its
popular detective series, "Yours Truly, Johnny Dollar," and cast Bob
Bailey in the lead. The role had been played in the hard-boiled gumshoe
tradition
by
In late 1960, CBS moved production
of "Johnny Dollar" to
After this film, Bailey suddenly
withdrew from show business and settled into a solitary private life,
apart from family and friends for many years. In the 1970s, reunited
with his daughter Roberta Goodwin, he lived comfortably in a
Bob Bailey was a skilled dramatic actor who made two funny movies almost by accident. We salute his contributions to the world of Laurel & Hardy.
Copyright © 1998 by Scott MacGillivray. Acknowledgment is made to John Gassman and Roberta Goodwin for background information.
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