Image Number

Collection

Geographic Term

Subject Term

Personal Subjects

Physical Description

Biographical Note

Oliver Norvell Hardy was born in Harlem, Georgia, in 1892. He began his career in movies as a projectionist at a theatre in Milledgeville, Georgia, where he spent much of childhood. Oliver "Babe" Hardy moved to Jacksonville in 1913 and made 50 short one-reeler films for Lubin Studios. After moving to New York he returned to Jacksonville around 1915 and appeared in more than 60 comedies for the Vim Comedy Company and the King Bee studios where he worked with Charlie Chaplin imitator Billy West and comedic actress Ethel Burton Palmer. Hardy followed the King Bee studio to New Jersey and then to Hollywood, where he would first begin his celebrated partnership with Stan Laurel in 1921.