Charlie Hall
Acting
Born 1899-08-18
Died 1959-12-07
Birmingham, Warwickshire, England, UK
211 credits
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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.
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Filmography
— top 60 of 211
Acting
58 credits
Cheyenne
Alfred Hitchcock Presents
The Abbott and Costello Show
King Kong
Topper
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Limelight
Dressed to Kill
Babes in Toyland
Top Hat
Bonnie Scotland
The Chiselers
The Lodger
Playing at Politics
Shall We Dance
Bacon Grabbers
Sons of the Desert
Cockeyed Cavaliers
Morning Glory
Hellzapoppin'
Laughing Gravy
Pack Up Your Troubles
Two Tars
Eve's Love Letters
Sugar Daddies
Saps at Sea
Bachelor Mother
Fluttering Hearts
One Night in the Tropics
Sister Kenny
Angora Love
Illegal
A Chump at Oxford
Without Reservations
College
The Skulls
The Big Street
The Battle of the Century
Mama Loves Papa
The Music Box
Captain Swagger
Our Relations
So's Your Uncle
Do Me a Favor
Radio Rampage
Unfriendly Enemies
Them Thar Hills
In Society
Tit for Tat
What Price Hollywood?
Double Whoopee
Skirt Shy
Five Came Back
The Falcon Takes Over
Police Bullets
Come Clean
Movie Night
Sweepstakes
Other credits
2 credits
Writing
1 credit
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