Charlie Hall

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Charlie Hall (19 August 1899 – 7 December 1959) was an English film actor. He is best known as the "Little Nemesis" of Laurel and Hardy and appeared in nearly 50 films with them, so that Hall was the most frequent supporting actor of their films.

Hall was born in Ward End, Birmingham, Warwickshire, and learned carpentry as a trade, but as a teenager, he became a member of the Fred Karno troupe of stage comedians. In his late teens, he visited his sister in New York and stayed there, finding employment as a stagehand. While working behind the scenes, he met the comic actor Bobby Dunn and they became friends; Dunn convinced Hall to take a stab again at acting, which he did. By the mid-1920s, Hall was working for Hal Roach. Stan Laurel, one of Roach's comedy stars, was also a graduate of the Karno troupe.

As an actor, Hall worked with such comedians as Buster Keaton and Charley Chase, but is best remembered as a comic foil for Laurel and Hardy. He appeared in nearly 50 of their films, sometimes in bit parts, but often as a mean landlord or opponent in many of their memorable tit-for-tat sequences. Unlike the usual villains in Laurel and Hardy films, who were big and burly, Charlie Hall (billed as "Charley" Hall in the Roach comedies) was of short stature, standing 5 ft 5 in tall. His height and slight English accent allowed him to be convincingly cast as a college student, despite being 40 years old, in Laurel and Hardy's A Chump at Oxford.

Hall almost never played starring roles; the exception was in 1941, when he was teamed with character comedian Frank Faylen by Monogram Pictures. Hall continued to play bits and supporting roles in short subjects and features through the 1940s and 1950s, occasionally on TV, appearing very briefly in Charlie Chaplin's final American film, Limelight (1952).

In 1956 he played a small but important part in the TV show Cheyenne, season 1, episode 11, "Quicksand", starring Clint Walker, with Dennis Hopper, John Alderson, Wright King and Peggy Webber. His last role was in a Joe McDoakes short film starring George O'Hanlon, So You Want to Play the Piano, in 1956.

Hall died in North Hollywood, California, on 7 December 1959. A J D Wetherspoon's public house in Erdington, is named The Charlie Hall as a tribute to him.

King Kong

7.6

Limelight

7.9

Top Hat

7.3

Sons of the Desert

7.0

Alfred Hitchcock Presents

7.7

The Music Box

7.6

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

7.3

Babes in Toyland

6.4

College

6.8

Dressed to Kill

6.5

Shall We Dance

7.2

Our Relations

6.9

A Chump at Oxford

6.9

Hellzapoppin'

7.1

The Lodger

6.3

Busy Bodies

7.3

Saps at Sea

6.8

Tit for Tat

6.8

Them Thar Hills

7.5

Bachelor Mother

7.1

Pack Up Your Troubles

6.7

Bonnie Scotland

6.6

Below Zero

6.5

Morning Glory

6.1

Berth Marks

6.8

Laughing Gravy

7.2

The Battle of the Century

6.8

The Hoose-Gow

6.6

They Go Boom!

6.9

Twice Two

6.7

Thicker Than Water

7.2

Two Tars

6.6

You're Darn Tootin'

5.7

The Midnight Patrol

6.5

Blotto

7.2

Come Clean

7.2

Illegal

6.4

The Ape Man

4.2

Me and My Pal

6.4

Be Big!

6.9

Leave 'Em Laughing

6.0

Five Came Back

6.2

Any Old Port!

7.0

The Live Ghost

7.1

What Price Hollywood?

6.7

Men O' War

7.0

Double Whoopee

6.7

The Second 100 Years

6.3

Wrong Again

6.7

Duck Soup

6.3

The Falcon Takes Over

6.0

Angora Love

6.5

Bacon Grabbers

6.3

That's My Wife

6.8

Primrose Path

6.5

Sugar Daddies

6.0

Call of the Cuckoo

5.7

With Love and Hisses

6.1

In Society

5.8

Cheyenne

5.8

Mighty Like a Moose

6.6

One Night in the Tropics

5.6

Million Dollar Legs

6.6

Without Reservations

6.2

The Big Street

5.8

The Abbott and Costello Show

7.1

Should Married Men Go Home?

6.4

Love 'Em and Weep

5.7

Sister Kenny

6.5

On the Loose

6.8

Hey! Hey! USA

6.9

Shivering and Shaking

6.8

Cynara

4.8

Vigil in the Night

6.0

Fluttering Hearts

5.0

Thundering Fleas

5.6

Boxing Gloves

6.0

Isn't Life Terrible?

5.8

Bear Shooters

5.2

Smithy

5.2

Kentucky Kernels

6.1

The Skulls

6.1

Bromo and Juliet

5.6

A Pair of Tights

7.6

Playing at Politics

7.0

The Mexican Spitfire's Baby

4.3

His Butler's Sister

7.1

Hi'–Neighbor!

7.9

Topper

6.0

Mexican Spitfire

4.6

Millionaires in Prison

6.0

Captain Fury

4.8

Night of Goblins

5.8

Mother's Joy

5.2

The Soilers

6.2

The Chiselers

6.6

Mexican Spitfire Out West

4.6

Seeing the World

6.1

Scratch-As-Catch-Can

5.0

Niagara Falls

6.8

You Can't Fool Your Wife

4.5

Zeb vs. Paprika

5.5

Mike Fright

5.8

Show Business

6.0

Dollar Dizzy

6.0

Postage Due

5.3

Strictly Unreliable

5.5

Man About Town

4.5

The Night Life

8.0

Eve's Love Letters

6.3

Cockeyed Cavaliers

6.0

Curtain Call

7.3

Haunted at Midnight

8.5

No Hiding Place

3.7

Man From Headquarters

6.0

Sealskins

5.5

Movie Night

6.0

Near Dublin

6.0

Babes in the Goods

9.0

Sweepstakes

4.5

The Pip from Pittsburg

6.5

Let's Go Native

7.5

Fifty Million Husbands

3.3

Diplomaniacs

7.0

Another Wild Idea

4.0

Bridal Bail

3.0

Only Saps Work

5.5

Men of the North

5.0

Unfriendly Enemies

6.0

Madame Sans Jane

2.0

Forgotten Sweeties

3.0

The Milkman

8.0

So You Want to Play the Piano

4.0

San Antonio Rose

7.0

The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy

6.0

Just a Pain in the Parlor

3.0

Little Mother

6.5

Sing Sister Sing

6.0

The Real McCoy

6.5

Came the Dawn

6.5

Backs to Nature

5.0

Skirt Shy

2.0

The Pajama Party

7.0

Air Fright

5.0

The Cowboy Sheik

5.0

A Ten-Minute Egg

5.0

The Panic Is On

2.0

Top Sergeant Mulligan

5.0

Rough Necking

10.0

The Kick-Off!

2.0

Too Many Women

9.0

Wild Babies!

1.0

Mama Loves Papa

9.0

Snappy Sneezer

6.5

Mr. Bride

5.5

Father Steps Out

3.0

The Undie-World

9.0

Love on a Ladder

1.0

So's Your Uncle

5.0

Leaping Love

0.0

Hold Your Temper

0.0

Framing Father

0.0

One of the Smiths

0.0

Nature in the Wrong

0.0

A Slip at the Switch

0.0

Soup and Fish

0.0

Hot Money

0.0

Opened by Mistake

0.0

Maids a la Mode

0.0

One-Horse Farmers

0.0

The Fighting Parson

0.0

War Mamas

0.0

Treasure Blues

0.0

Twin Triplets

0.0

Sneak Easily

0.0

Beauty and the Bus

0.0

One Track Minds

0.0

Maid in Hollywood

0.0

An All American Toothache

0.0

Let's Do Things

0.0

Abie's Irish Rose

0.0

Ocean Swells

0.0

Rhapsody in Brew

0.0

Keg o' My Heart

0.0

Love Pains

0.0

The Best of Laurel and Hardy

0.0

An Apple in His Eye

0.0

Captain Swagger

0.0

The Druggist's Dilemma

0.0

In Love at 40

0.0

I'll Fix It

0.0

A Quiet Fourth

0.0

A Trailer Tragedy

0.0

Honeymoon Lodge

0.0

Girls! Girls! Girls!

0.0

Radio Rampage

0.0

On Stage Everybody

0.0

Do Me a Favor

5.0

Dance of the Cookoos

0.0

The Janitor

0.0

What Fur

0.0