- When Hal Roach died at the age of 100, he had outlived many of the children who starred in his "Our Gang" films of the 1920s and 30s.
- He idolized Mark Twain, whom he met as a boy.
- He had frequently told the story of sitting in his office in 1921 and watching some kids playing in a nearby lot. The kids were playfully arguing over a stick as if were the most important thing in the world. He realized that he had been fascinated over their antics and was amazed to realize he'd failed how much time had passed watching these kids at play. The led to the idea for the "Our Gang" comedies, which became--after Harold Lloyd (who'd soon leave for independent production)--Roach's most profitable property, and, with innumerable cast changes, the longest running short series in Hollywood history (sold to MGM in 1937 and continuing through 1944).
- Ex father-in-law of Mercury astronaut Scott Carpenter, who married and later divorced Hal's daughter Maria Roach.
- From its inception as the Rollin Film Company in 1914, Hal Roach Studios was originally based on Hill Street in the Bunker Hill section of Downtown Los Angeles, California. In 1919, when zoning rules prevented Roach from expanding his downtown property, he purchased 10 acres in Culver City (at $1000 an acre) and built a new studio from scratch. Roach claimed the success of his early films with Harold Lloyd enabled him to finance this move. The Roach lot eventually grew to 17 acres and included 52 buildings and 7 sound stages, back lot and technical facilities, a laboratory for processing film, and a commissary (The "Our Gang" Café) that was open to the public. Hal Roach Studios ceased production in 1959 and the lot was demolished in 1963. A pocket park on Washington Boulevard, where the "Our Gang" Café once stood, was dedicated in 1980 to commemorate the site. with a commemorative plaque being the only indication of the site's illustrious past.The 88-year-old Roach attended the ceremony.
- His Laurel and Hardy short The Music Box won the first ever Academy Award for Best Comedy Short but at the time Oscar statuettes weren't presented for this category instead a Certificate was presented. Later Hal gave this to Stan Laurel.
- Made long running film series around Harold Lloyd, Our Gang, Charley Chase, Will Rogers, Thelma Todd, Harry Langdon and most famously Laurel & Hardy,.
- Most of the big stars on the Roach lot, including Stan Laurel, Oliver Hardy and Charley Chase, used their own names in their pictures. Many of the supporting players did the same. According to Stan Laurel, they couldn't be replaced by other, less expensive actors this way.
- His films were initially distributed by Pathe Exchange, the US branch of the French firm Pathe Freres. Ironically, this was the same distributor his arch-rival Mack Sennett used. When the French firm imploded in the mid-'20s, Sennett's fate was sealed while Roach's boutique studio retained enough clout with its "Our Gang" franchise (among others) to secure a lucrative deal with MGM, despite his break with Harold Lloyd.
- Founder of Hal Roach Studios, active from 1914 to 1959.
- Father of Margaret Roach
- In the early years at the Roach Studios Stan Laurel and Hal agreed on many aspects of making their films but disagreements soon crept in as to whether the story fitted in with the gags. Stan was the star and made most of the decisions but at times Hal began to question him and said 'Stan, next to Chaplin was the best gag man in the business but as for writing a story he wasn't worth a nickle 'He also said 'Stan was equally as good as Chaplin in remembering many sight gags from English music halls.
- Started his film career as a stuntman and actor, playing heavies in J. Warren Kerrigan westerns.
- With the success of Laurel and Hardy. in 1927 Hal hoped to succeed with a female team and paired Anita Garvin with Marion 'Peanut' Byron in three 2 reel comedies. With the advent of sound he re thought the team and paired Zasu Pitts with Thelma Todd for 16 short comedies between 1931 and 33. Zasu left after the 32/33 season and was replaced by Patsy Kelly. Late in the 3rd year Thelma died and was replaced with Pert Kelton for one film then with Lyda Roberti for the final two films of the contract after which the series ended.
- Hal Roach went to Universal Pictures as an inexperienced actor in 1913 and by the following year he owned his own company which continues in the family down to the present day.
- On January 23, 1992 the Smithsonian bestowed the James Smithson Bicentennial Medal in Washington, D.C.
- The Roach Studios front office was originally built in the Spanish Mission style and was covered in ivy by the early 1930s. This made it look picturesque but also encouraged rodent problems. In 1936 it was remodeled in a Southern plantation style resembling that of the famous Selznick Studio entrance further down Washington Boulevard in Culver City.
- Played saxophone.
- Grandfather of Addison Randall
- Developed appendicitis during the filming of March of the Wooden Soldiers (1934).
- In February 1992, Roach traveled to Berlin to receive the honorary award of the Berlinale Kamera for Lifetime Achievement at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival.
- On March 30, 1992, Roach appeared at the 64th Academy Awards ceremony, hosted by Billy Crystal. When Roach rose from the audience to a standing ovation, he decided to give a speech without a microphone, causing Crystal to quip "I think that's appropriate because Mr. Roach started in silent films.".
- In 2020, Rose McGowan alleged that, in 1937, Roach was responsible for a case of large-scale sexual abuse of actresses. However, no evidence has been produced to substantiate these claims, the only link to him being that an infamous sex party was held by MGM at the Hal Roach Ranch, which was used by the company as a studio.
- For two more decades, Roach Sr. occasionally worked as a consultant on projects related to his past work. In 1983 the "Hal Roach Studios" name was reactivated as a video concern, pioneering the new field of colorizing movies. Roach lent his film library to the cause but was otherwise not involved in the new video productions. Extremely vigorous into an advanced age, Roach contemplated a comedy comeback at 96.
- Roach outlived three of his children by more than 20 years: Hal Jr. (died in 1972), Margaret (died in 1964), and Elizabeth (died in 1946). He also outlived many of the children who starred in his films.
- In 1955, Roach sold his interests in the production company to his son, Hal Roach Jr., and retired from active production. The younger Roach lacked much of his father's business acumen and was forced to sell the studio in 1958 to The Scranton Corporation, a division of the automobile-parts conglomerate F. L. Jacobs Co. The Roach studio finally shut down in 1961.
- In 1984, 92-year-old Roach was presented with an honorary Academy Award. Former Our Gang members Jackie Cooper and George "Spanky" McFarland made the presentation to a flattered Roach, with McFarland thanking the producer for hiring him 53 years prior. An additional Our Gang member, Ernie Morrison, was in the crowd and started the standing ovation for Roach. Years earlier Cooper had been the youngest Academy Award nominee ever for his performance in Skippy when he had been under contract with Roach. Although Paramount had paid Roach $25,000 for Cooper's services in that film, Roach paid Cooper only his standard salary of $50 per week.
- After an adventurous youth that took him to Alaska, Hal Roach arrived in Hollywood, California, in 1912 and began working as an extra in silent films. Upon coming into an inheritance, he began producing short film comedies in 1915 with his friend Harold Lloyd, who portrayed a character known as Lonesome Luke.
- Recognizing the value of his film library, in 1943 Roach began licensing revivals of his older productions for theatrical distribution through Film Classics, Inc. and home-movie distribution.
- Roach's old theatrical films were also early arrivals on television. His Laurel and Hardy comedies were successful in television syndication, as were the Our Gang comedies he produced from 1929 to 1938.
- In 1940, Roach experimented with medium-length featurettes, running 40 to 50 minutes each. He contended that these "streamliners", as he called them, would be useful in double-feature situations where the main attraction was a longer-length epic. Exhibitors agreed with him and used Roach's mini-features to balance top-heavy double bills. He had intended to introduce the new format with a series of four Laurel and Hardy featurettes, but was overruled by United Artists, which insisted on two Laurel & Hardy feature films instead. United Artists continued to release Roach's streamliners through 1943. By this time, Roach no longer had a resident company of comedy stars and cast his films with familiar featured players (William Tracy and Joe Sawyer, Johnny Downs, Jean Porter, Frank Faylen, William Bendix, George E. Stone, Bobby Watson, etc.).
- A presentation by the American humorist Mark Twain impressed Roach as a young grade school student.
- Roach released his films through Pathé Exchange until 1927, when he struck a distribution deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. He converted his silent-movie studio to sound in late 1928 and began releasing talking shorts in early 1929. In the days before dubbing, foreign language versions of the Roach comedies were created by reshooting each film in the Spanish, French, and occasionally Italian and German languages. Laurel & Hardy, Charley Chase, and the Our Gang kids (some of whom had barely begun school) were required to recite the foreign dialogue phonetically, often working from blackboards hidden off-camera.
- He is credited with inventing the "potato clause" for his star Thelma Todd. It was a contract stipulation that threatened her with dismissal if she gained more than five pounds above a fixed weight. Roach may have coined the term, but in 1920s Hollywood the studios already retained a contractual option to let actors go for "changing their appearance" (such as through weight gain).
- Hal Roach opened a racetrack in Santa Anita, California on December 25, 1934.
- An article in the June 1, 1929 issue of "Hollywood Filmograph" announced that William S. Hart had just signed to star in a talkie western feature for the Hal Roach Studios, to be directed by Roach and Lambert Hillyer. Thelma Todd was to be the female lead. Outdoor locations were to be filmed in Montana. However, no such film was ever made.
- On January 21, 1992, Roach was a guest on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, one week after his 100th birthday, where he recounted experiences with such stars as Stan Laurel and Jean Harlow; he even did a brief, energetic demonstration of the "humble hula" dance.
- In the 2018 Laurel and Hardy biopic Stan & Ollie, Roach was portrayed by Danny Huston.
- In 1937, Roach conceived a joint business venture partnering with Vittorio Mussolini, son of fascist Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, to form a production company called "R.A.M." (Roach and Mussolini). Roach claimed the scheme involved Italian bankers providing US$6 million that would enable Roach's studio to produce a series of 12 films. Eight would be for Italian screening only while the remaining four would receive world distribution. The first film for Italy was to be a feature film of the opera Rigoletto. This proposed business alliance with Mussolini alarmed MGM, which intervened and forced Roach to buy his way out of the venture. This embarrassment, coupled with the underperformance of much of Roach's latest feature-film output (except Laurel & Hardy titles and the 1937 hit Topper), led to the end of Roach's distribution contract with MGM. In May 1938, Roach sold MGM the production rights and actors contracts to the Our Gang shorts. Roach signed a distribution deal with United Artists at this time.[.
- During the 1920s, Roach's biggest rival was producer Mack Sennett. In 1925, Roach hired away Sennett's supervising director, F. Richard Jones.
- Roach was active in the industry from the 1910s to the 1990s and is best remembered today for producing a number of successes including the Laurel and Hardy franchise, the films of entertainer Charley Chase, and the Our Gang short film comedy series.
- Hal Roach was born in Elmira, New York, to Charles Henry Roach, whose father was born in Wicklow, County Wicklow, Ireland, and Mabel Gertrude Bally, her father John Bally being from Switzerland.
- In April 1948 Hal Roach Studios announced the production of six Cinecolor features, to be released through Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer. The first was to be entitled "Little Circus". Ultimately no future films produced by Roach Studios would be released through M-G-M and "Little Circus" was never produced.
- As a producer Roach was known for anticipating or quickly adapting to new trends in the entertainment industry. Yet to the end of his life he maintained that when it came to comedy, he preferred shorts to features and silent films over talkies.
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