Oliver Hardy and The Best Times in Jacksonville
In 1913, the singer/actor-obsessed Oliver Hardy of Georgia moved to Jacksonville in hopes to get a better opportunity in the film industry. At that time, Jacksonville, Florida was a hub for making movies and the Lubin Manufacturing company that produced and distributed films was a part of that success. At night, Hardy was a singer-actor and by day he worked at the Lubin Manufacturing Company, one that produced and distributed films. Jacksonville was a place for the cinematography industry for filming after summer wore off and was called the “winter film capital of the world” at one point.
Oliver Hardy was born in Columbia County; Harlem, Georgia. Today, that little town is growing in leaps and bounds with a population of over 3,000 people. Even as recent as yesterday, I saw logging trucks hauling off huge trees and the railroad tracks still rumbling from the sound of ingoing and outgoing train cars although there is no depot stop for passenger trains. In 1913, it is documented as having 10 passenger trains a day. In 1835, the train tracks were being laid from Augusta to Eatonton. Harlem, Georgia was a stop but the last passenger train came through in 1983. Now it’s only commercial. Interesting to me was that nearby there was a community called “Saw Dust”.
From the account written on the Harlem city website, in 1857, a Medical College of Augusta, just miles away moved to the area and sold land for a dollar an acre. He donated land for the Baptist and Methodist churches and for a school; now Harlem Middle School. Within 10 years, Newnan Hicks was known to quit his job for being asked to work on Sunday and thus wanted to have a town that did not sell liquor, moving down from Andrew J. Sanders, that process began and by 1870 the town was founded and named by a visiting New York relative from New York, thus “Harlem”.
The theatre where Hardy and his counter part, Stan Laurel performed was right there along the train tracks. I can imagine the whistle blew and rails rumbled time after time before, after and yes during performances. It is now a museum.
About the time Hardy moved to Jacksonville, he met and married Madelyn Saloshin, a pianist. A Lubin facility was opened at 750 Riverside Avenue in Jacksonville, Florida. Hardy played a small role in his first movie “Outwitting Dad”. That was only the beginning of his career. He would team with Stan Laurel and make more than 100 comedy films.
The Lubin Manufacturing Company, based out of Philadelphia was active from 1897-1916 with a studio in Jacksonville beginning in 1913. It was in the Lubin film company that Hardy was billed as “Babe Hardy and appeared in “ some fifty short” films. During those years, the company had legal battles with the Thomas Edison motion picture business, a “disastrous fire” at the main Lubin studio, destroying a great many negatives and World War II came causing additional losses. All of these things brought about a bankruptcy in 1916 with the end of the company and the company closing completely.
In terms of the film industry in Jacksonville, the Florida State Archives indicates that “the political atmosphere in Jacksonville turned against the movie industry due to accusations of fraud, ties to political corruption and fear of endangering the public welfare with elaborate stunt sequences.” The movie era in Jacksonville was over and it moved to Hollywood California.Basically, the only thing left of the film industry in Jacksonville is the Norman film building but that’s a story for another day.
According to ta Tampa Bay story Oliver Hardy wrote in a letter to a friend, “”The best times of my life were spent in Jacksonville.” So, those must have been some good days.
See you tomorrow,
Nan
Sources: Silentera. Com, The Coastal, Wikipedia, Tampa Bay Times, Visit to Harlem 1/26/23.