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2 unusual facts about Hal Roach


A. Ronald Button

During World War II, he was a major in the Army Signal Corps motion picture division, spending much of his duty time at Hal Roach Studios with actor Ronald Reagan.

Hal Roach's Streamliners

Roach resumed film production with the streamliners in Cinecolor, giving Roach the distinction of being the only film studio to have an all-color schedule.


Abroad with Two Yanks

Due to Hal Roach's contract for filming training films for the American Army, the film and Bendix's commitment to it was sold to producer Edward Small with Roach employee Fred Guiol to be credited as a producer.

Ann Barnes

In the series executive-produced by Hal Roach, Arthur Lake reprised the role of Dagwood, first essayed in the feature films produced by Columbia Pictures in the 1930s-1940’s.

Charles D. Hall

Hall left Universal in the late 1930s and went to United Artists, where he worked for producer Hal Roach on such films as Topper Takes a Trip, the first of the two sequels to 1937's Topper.

Hay Foot

Hay Foot is a 1942 American military comedy, the second of five World War II-themed Hal Roach's Streamliners starring William Tracy and Joe Sawyer (three additional entries in the series were produced after the war).

Jimmie Adams

Star comedians Jimmie Adams, Bobby Vernon, Lige Conley, Neal Burns, and Billy Dooley constituted a lineup that was no threat to Hal Roach, but nevertheless entertained millions with a style than neither Roach or Mack Sennett could or would provide.

King World Productions

It was a company that expressly handled television distribution of the classic Hal Roach Our Gang shorts.

Kitty Kelly

However, she is probably more infamously remembered in the Hal Roach Our Gang comedy short Beginner's Luck, which was released by M-G-M in 1935.

Lloyd Binford

Among the other films Binford had banned from Memphis was the comedy Curley (1947), which was executive-produced by Hal Roach in the style of his earlier Our Gang shorts.

Marion Byron

From there she was hired by Hal Roach to co-star in short subjects with Max Davidson, Edgar Kennedy, and Charley Chase, but most significantly with Anita Garvin, where tiny (5') Marion was teamed with 6' Anita for a brief (3 film) series as a "female Laurel & Hardy" in 1928–1929.

Mildred Davis

After appearing in several small roles, she caught the attention of Hal Roach, who pointed her out to comedian Harold Lloyd.

Nicholas Carpenter

Nicholas Carpenter is the son of Scott Carpenter, one of the original Mercury astronauts, and Maria Roach Carpenter, daughter of film producer Hal Roach.

Pardon Us

After the release of MGM's hit The Big House with Chester Morris and Wallace Beery, producer Hal Roach decided to feature Laurel and Hardy in a two-reeler spoofing the current prison drama.

Pete the Pup

Pete the Pup (January 22, 1929 – January 28, 1946) was an American Staffordshire Terrier character in Hal Roach's Our Gang comedies (later known as The Little Rascals) during the 1930s.

Pickaninny

In the 1936 Hal Roach feature General Spanky starring the Our Gang children, Buckwheat gets his foot tangled in the cord that blows the whistle on the river boat.

Sandyford

Well known residents of Sandyford include radio personality Ray D'Arcy, singer/songwriter Paul Brady, and comedian Hal Roach (1927–2012), while David Kennedy, the former Formula 1 driver and RTÉ and Setanta Sports commentator lived for many years on Sandyford Road.

The Kid Brother

Its storyline is an homage to a 1921 film called Tol'able David, although it is essentially a re-make of a little-known 1924 Hal Roach feature, The White Sheep, starring Glenn Tryon.

Verree Teasdale

Teasdale and Menjou appeared together in two films, the Harold Lloyd vehicle The Milky Way in 1936 and Hal Roach's Turnabout in 1940, and were also co-hosts of a syndicated radio program in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Zeffie Tilbury

Tilbury is probably best remembered as the old lady who is befriended by Spanky and his friends on her birthday and, as a result, is transformed from a lonely, disagreeable recluse to a happy and loving carefree soul in the 1936 Hal Roach Our Gang comedy Second Childhood.


see also

Charley Chase

Chase's sound comedies for Hal Roach were briefly televised in the late 1990s on the short-lived American cable network the Odyssey Channel.

Edna Marion

She began her career in the 1920s, starring in Edward Ludwig's Broadway Beauties, followed by several appearances in Francis Corby's productions and spending much of the late 1920s at the Hal Roach studios, alongside comedians Charley Chase, Laurel and Hardy, and others.