My Dad and Laurel & Hardy

  • I was think­ing about my dad recently, and so I went onto YouTube and looked up this Lau­rel & Hardy movie called “Fly­ing Deuces.” See the parts where a crowd is alter­nately chas­ing the plane and being chased by the plane? Some­where in that crowd is my dad, at the ten­der age of about 11, I think. My dad was always hang­ing around the Van Nuys air­port and he was very tall for his age, so when the cam­era­men felt like they didn’t have enough extras for the scene, they said, “Hey, Air­port Kid!” and gave him a French for­eign legion out­fit and the clock started on his 15 min­utes of fame. He sure had to run around a lot for this part of it.


    My dad passed away 17 years ago. I have pic­tures of him, of course, but we didn’t go in for home movies, so even though I don’t know which one is him, this is it for live action. It’s kind of suit­able, though. Dad had a great sense of humor always, and a very active sense of fun and mis­chief. It sort of works for me that the only video I have is of him chas­ing an air­plane in a Lau­rel & Hardy pic.

    By the way, some of what he saw dur­ing the shoot­ing made quite an impres­sion on him. Check out the stunt fly­ing in this clip, specif­i­cally the forced stall start­ing at 2:12 and those hard touch and go’s after­ward. And you see the part at 3:10 where the plane sweeps over the con­trol tower? Dad said there was a cam­era man who was sup­posed to film that from inside the tower, but that the pilot pulled up so close to the tower that the guy thought for sure the plane was going to crash, so he lost his nerve and just ran away.

    Just a lit­tle bit of nos­tal­gia tucked away in an old movie. But I’m glad I was able to find it on YouTube. That’s my dad, just a lit­tle bit.


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    July 19th, 2009 | Grace | 1 Comment |

One Response and Counting...

  • s-p 07.19.2009

    How cool is that?? For a guy, that’s ALMOST as cool as being in a Three Stooges episode. :)

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