Laurel and Hardy: Clown Princes of Comedy

Charts the glittering career of the best-loved faces in the film world. With a foreword by Ernie Wise, this volume follows the laughter-making pair from their early days in Hal Roach's silent comedies through the transition to sound, to the Hollywood features of their later years. The book recounts, in words and pictures, the comic pairing of Laurel and Hardy - one a childlike innocent with a penchant for anarchy, the other a bossy incompetent - who arrived on the film scene late in the silent era, and transformed the popular comedy of the day. Their partnership first flowered in "Putting Pants on Philip" and went from strength to strength with "Leave 'Em Laughing", "Big Business" and the Academy award-winning "The Music Box". As characters, they complemented one another perfectly, and their partnership has gone down as one of the greatest in film history. The book contains behind-the-scenes stories, photographs, a filmography and select discography.