Thomas Benton Roberts 1980 and 1986
Wednesday, January 30th, 2008
Thomas Benton Roberts was the only celebrity at the Hollywood ’80 Sons of the Desert convention who signed my autograph book twice. I reckon that I had him do this because I really had no idea who he was at the time. Later on I realized that he appeared in the classic Laurel and Hardy silent film Two Tars as the hapless victim of Stan’s gushy tomato. Still later, I found out that Thomas Benton Roberts actually meant much more to the production of the L&H films. He was what was referred-to-as a ‘stand-by carpenter’ – a less-than-glamourous term for a special effects artist. Read the rest of this entry »
The name Roy Seawright probably doesn’t mean much to the average Joe. But to me in 1986, he was a super-celebrity, having worked with Laurel and Hardy at the Hal Roach Studios as a special effects man. He was responsible for aiding Stan Laurel in igniting his thumb in Way Out West, smoking his thumb in Block-Heads, and wiggling his ears in Blotto. He helped design the special effects so that Laurel and Hardy could play their own sons in the film Brats and appear to be one-third the size of their parental counterparts. Since these films meant so much in my life, this made Mr. Seawright a huge celebrity and a highly desirable autograph in my eyes. 
Eddie Quillan (seen at right with comedy producer Mack Sennett) had a long and distinguished film and TV career, playing more than 200 roles from the golden age of slapstick to the late 1980’s. My interest in Mr. Quillan – as you might suspect – was due to the role he played in the 1934 all-star feature Hollywood Party. You might even say he was the ‘leading man’ among the sea of comedians, including Laurel and Hardy, Jimmy Durante, and the Three Stooges among others. 
For years, Laurel and Hardy’s films from the 1940’s have been picked on, put down, and shunned by most Laurel and Hardy fans. In recent days, the films have seen new life by getting very nice DVD reissues and have been re-evaluated by many fans who now consider them small masterpieces in their own right. I typically try to stay out of any discussion on the merits (or lack of them) of the 1940’s films. Mostly because I simply don’t care. The films are what they are and they now more than sixty years old…so what does it really matter? Some are crap, some have their moments, and some I completely enjoy – all while recognizing that none of them live up to the standards set in the 1930’s films made at the Hal Roach Studios.