Table of Contents

Title Page
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PROLOGUE - ‘No thoughts of any kind …’

PART ONE - Twice Upon a Time …

CHAPTER ONE - Once Upon a Clown
CHAPTER TWO - Fathers and Sons: Stanley
CHAPTER THREE - Sons and Fathers: The Road Diverges
CHAPTER FOUR - Fathers and Sons: Ollie – War and Peace
CHAPTER FIVE - Mother and Son: The Boarding House Boy
CHAPTER SIX - We Are Fred Karno’s Army: What Bloody Use Are We?
CHAPTER SEVEN - In the Temple of the Magic Light Beams
CHAPTER EIGHT - Wow-Wows in Wonderland
CHAPTER NINE - Rum ’Uns a-Roamin’
CHAPTER TEN - Babe: ‘All Broken Out with the Movies’
CHAPTER ELEVEN - Vim and Vigour — or Straddling the Home Plates
CHAPTER TWELVE - The Laurel Wreath of Scipio Africanus – and Other Tall Hollywood Tales
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - Just Rolin Along – Commence the Hal Roach Story
CHAPTER FOURTEEN - Flips and Flops: The Larry Semon Show
CHAPTER FIFTEEN - Their First Kiss: ‘Put ’em both up, insect, before I comb your hair with lead …’
CHAPTER SIXTEEN - The Handy Man
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - Somewhere, Over the Rainbow …
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - Into the Home Stretch: The Reluctant Suitors

PART TWO - The Glory Days – ‘Tall Oaks From Little Acorns Grow’

CHAPTER NINETEEN - The Fruits of Toil
CHAPTER TWENTY - From Babe to Ollie: The Metamorphosis
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - Running Frantically through the Streets
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - Full Supporting Cast: The Lot of Fun
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - Multiple Whoopee, or Wives and Woes
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - Unaccustomed As We Aren’t
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE - The Song of the Cuckoos
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX - Chickens Come Home
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN - A Very Good Boy
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT - Busy Bodies and Devil’s Brothers
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE - The Exhausted Rulers
CHAPTER THIRTY - Babes in Toil-land

PART THREE - ‘We Faw Down’: On the trail of the lonesome mimes

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE - ‘Nice Weather We Had Tomorrow …’
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO - Bohemian Girls
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE - Believe It or Not — Stan and Hal Go Off the Rails
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR - Hardy Without Laurel, Laurel Without Hardy
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE - ‘Something wholesome, something tender …’
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX - The Fox and the Huns
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN - Nothing But Trouble
CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT - Any Old Port
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE - Utopias and Unpromised Lands
CHAPTER FORTY - Twilight of the Vauds

EPILOGUE - Going Bye Bye

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Notes on Sources
Chronology
Filmography
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index
Notes
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