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 mid1920s Hall was working for Hal Roach Stan Laurel one of Roachs 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 titfortat 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 Hardys 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 Chaplins 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 OHanlon So You Want to Play the Piano in 1956 Hall died in North Hollywood California on 7 December 1959 A J D Wetherspoons public house in Erdington is named The Charlie Hall as a tribute to him