Hal Roach: Director and Producer

The son of Irish immigrants, Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York on January 14, 1892. He lived to the ripe age of 100 after producing a legacy that included the Our Gang series, Laurel and Hardy shorts, and feature films Topper, and Of Mice and Men.

Roach lived on Columbia Street in Elmira until he left at the age of 16 to begin his career.

Hal's father Charles grew up on a Virginia plantation, now the site of the Pentagon. After moving to Elmira he married Mabel Bally and worked for the insurance company Roach and Fishler (which later became Brand Insurance). Hal's mother ran a boarding house out of their home and was most responsible for Hal's business acumen. She died a millionaire at age 96 .

Hal Roach visited his childhood home several times late in his life. During those visits he spoke at numerous gatherings, recollecting memories from his youth. Those memories included swimming in the Chemung River, playing football for Elmira Free Academy, and spending weekends at Quarry Farm.

Other memories included delivering newspapers to Samuel Clemens - Mark Twain - while the writer worked in his study at Quarry Farm, hearing Clemens deliver a Sunday school speech at Park Church, and seeing magician Harry Houdini perform an escape stunt while suspended over the Chemung River.

Roach also recollected being asked to leave "most every school in Elmira." In fact, once, when asked by Elmira College students what Roach's greatest memory of Booth School was, he replied, "When they asked me to leave!"

Roach's early career path took many turns before ending up in Hollywood. Before breaking into film, he was an Alaskan prospector and muleskinner, mail carrier, truck driver, and superintendent on an oil pipeline.

Roach moved to Hollywood in 1912 and became an extra in silent westerns. He used a $3,000 inheritance to form his own production company in1914 that came to be named The Hal Roach Studios. This fun factory was nestled in the hills of Culver City, not far from Hollywood.

During the '20s and '30s, many stars worked for Roach including Charley Chase, Snub Pollard, Will Rogers, Mabel Normand, Irvin Cobb, and Laurel and Hardy. Many Roach Studio performers went on to stardom elsewhere including Jean Harlow, Janet Gaynor, Fay Wray, and Boris Karloff.

Those who worked at Hal Roach Studios characterized their experience there as a wonderfully warm place, with a lighthearted close-knit family atmosphere unique even among movie studios.

During World War II, Hal Roach Studios shared their back lot with the Air Force. Fort Roach made several specialized film projects, many of which featured Ronald Reagan.

Called into service himself, Roach was an Army Lieutenant Colonel during World War II and saw action in Normandy. An interesting aside - before the war, he was involved with Mussolini working on some Italian film projects that never came to fruition.

After the war, Roach shifted to television and his studios produced and/or filmed several television series including Amos 'n Andy, The Lone Ranger, Blondie, Groucho Marx, Abbott and Costello, The Life of Riley, and The George Raft Show.

Hal Roach Studios became the first Hollywood motion-picture company to photograph entirely in color (Cinecolor) and the only studio at the time devoted to producing films for television exclusively.

During the 1980s, under different ownership, Roach Studios perfected and patented one of the earliest forms of computer colorization.

Hal Roach appeared on David Letterman at the age of 96. He was twice saluted at the Academy Awards, first in 1983 when he won the Lifetime Achievement Award, and a few years later when host Billy Crystal pointed him out in the audience.

Though Roach spent most of his life living away from Elmira, he used his childhood hometown in his film work. One of the films in The Boy friends series (the Little Rascals as teenagers) featured Elmira and Corning playing football.

Elmira College awarded Roach an honorary doctorate in 1988. Other local honors include the Hal Roach Scholarship Fund for promising theater students, the Hal Roach Society, a plaque at the Clemens Center, and a Grove Park pavilion in his name.

Hal Roach died on November 2, 1992 and is buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Elmira. Both his parents are also buried in Elmira.

Hal Roach is also featured on the Welcome sign at the entrance to the City at Interstate 86 and Church Street.

Sources:

• The Star-Gazette: November 3, 1992 and August 17, 1986
  
• The Little Rascals - The Life and Times of Our Gang, Leonard Maltin and Richard Bann, Three Rivers Press, New York, 1992