Charlie Hall

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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.

Filmography

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2024
Laurel & Hardy: Year Two
Movie (archive footage) (uncredited)
1982
Dance of the Cookoos
Movie Receptionist / Postman / Delivery Man
1968
The Best of Laurel and Hardy
Movie Annoyed Shopkeeper (archive footage) (uncredited)
1967
The Further Perils of Laurel and Hardy
Movie
1959
No Hiding Place
TV show
1956
So You Want to Play the Piano
Movie
1955
Illegal
Movie Bellhop (uncredited)
1955
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
TV show Man with Pool Cue (uncredited)
1955
Cheyenne
TV show Kevin
1953
Topper
TV show Man in lower bunk in jail (uncredited)
1952
The Abbott and Costello Show
TV show Jake - Roofer
1952
Limelight
Movie Newsboy (uncredited)
1950
The Milkman
Movie Ed (uncredited)
1946
Abie's Irish Rose
Movie Hotel Porter (as Charles Hall)
1946
Sister Kenny
Movie Airport Attendant (uncredited)
1946
Dressed to Kill
Movie Cab Driver (uncredited)