A Strange story from Lucille Hardy Price

[John Field]

As most of you hopefully know, I am a long standing member (Now Grand
Sheik) of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Group the Saps at Sea,
located here in San Diego. Several years ago, we had Lucille Hardy and
her husband as guests. After the gathering (Films, food and fun), we
had a chance to sit and ask Lucille questions about Babe. At one point
in our questioning, she looked very sad, changed her expression from
happiness to anguish and said: "I always felt I killed Oliver".
Needless to say, we were all shocked. She went onto explain that
because of Oliver's obesity and declining health, a doctor (An obvious
quack) recommended that Oliver be put on a strict diet of beets only!
Beets and beet juice. So adhering to the Doctor's orders, she made
Oliver eat nothing, that is nothing but beets for Months. His weight
plummeted and then soon after the strokes started. Obviously the
quickly massive weight loss without the proper Doctoring was too much
for his heart and led to an early death. I remember this conversation
as if it were yesterday. I only wish I had a tape recorder running.
Lucille was a very sweet woman. The fact that she was doing what she
felt was best for a man she obviously loved dearly, did not make her a
murderer by any stretch of the imagination. We all comforted her and
assured her of the same. This is just a sad footnote to the pre-mature
passing of one of our most beloved comedians. Has anyone ever heard
that story before?
John

[John]

Post by John Field
Obviously the
quickly massive weight loss without the proper Doctoring was too much
for his heart and led to an early death.

Just yesterday, I was looking at the newsreel footage of the boys which
is one of the extras on the DVD "In This Our Life". Seeing Oliver in a
candid situation, it struck me just how seriously obese he really was.
Today he probably would be classified as "morbidly obese". I don't think
we can say with certainty that the strange diet hastened his death. He
had lived an unhealthy lifestyle for so many years that he might have
died just as soon without it. Sad!

John

[Hal Erickson]

This doesn't surprise me. It's not uncommon for the widow to feel that "if
only I'd done this" or "if only I'd done that" her husband would still be
alive. My own mother, God rest her soul, spent nearly a year after my
father's death fretting over how she didn't do enough to keep him alive,
even though he was suffering from several forms of inoperable cancer. And
I've heard other widows talk the same way. Generally they get over it after
a while. Apparently Lucille didn't.

What DID surprise me was the information I found in the website containing
the personal letters of Stan Laurel, in which he recalled a visit from
Lucille in which she was "higher than a kite", then ruefully commented that
heavy drinking was the Hardys' "favorite indoor sport." I knew that Ollie
quaffed a few on occasion, but I wasn't aware that Lucille had a problem
along those lines.

--Hal E

Post by John Field
Obviously the
quickly massive weight loss without the proper Doctoring was too much
for his heart and led to an early death.

Just yesterday, I was looking at the newsreel footage of the boys which is
one of the extras on the DVD "In This Our Life". Seeing Oliver in a candid
situation, it struck me just how seriously obese he really was. Today he
probably would be classified as "morbidly obese". I don't think we can say
with certainty that the strange diet hastened his death. He had lived an
unhealthy lifestyle for so many years that he might have died just as soon
without it. Sad!
John
--
Please reply in this newsgroup. I never post my true
email address to prevent spam. Thank you.

[Larc]

On Thu, 7 Aug 2008 08:27:51 -0500, "Hal Erickson" <***@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

| This doesn't surprise me. It's not uncommon for the widow to feel that "if
| only I'd done this" or "if only I'd done that" her husband would still be
| alive. My own mother, God rest her soul, spent nearly a year after my
| father's death fretting over how she didn't do enough to keep him alive,
| even though he was suffering from several forms of inoperable cancer. And
| I've heard other widows talk the same way. Generally they get over it after
| a while. Apparently Lucille didn't.
|
| What DID surprise me was the information I found in the website containing
| the personal letters of Stan Laurel, in which he recalled a visit from
| Lucille in which she was "higher than a kite", then ruefully commented that
| heavy drinking was the Hardys' "favorite indoor sport." I knew that Ollie
| quaffed a few on occasion, but I wasn't aware that Lucille had a problem
| along those lines.

That surprises me as well since I've always heard more stories about Stan's
problems with drinking than about Babe's and/or Lucilles's.

Larc

[m***@gmail.com]

I believe part of Stan's problems came from grief over the death of his son. He never was able to get over it and couldn't find comfort in grieving with his wife.

[Larc]

On Thu, 7 Aug 2008 02:07:04 -0700 (PDT), John Field <***@prodigy.net> wrote:

| As most of you hopefully know, I am a long standing member (Now Grand
| Sheik) of the Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Group the Saps at Sea,
| located here in San Diego. Several years ago, we had Lucille Hardy and
| her husband as guests. After the gathering (Films, food and fun), we
| had a chance to sit and ask Lucille questions about Babe. At one point
| in our questioning, she looked very sad, changed her expression from
| happiness to anguish and said: "I always felt I killed Oliver".
| Needless to say, we were all shocked. She went onto explain that
| because of Oliver's obesity and declining health, a doctor (An obvious
| quack) recommended that Oliver be put on a strict diet of beets only!
| Beets and beet juice. So adhering to the Doctor's orders, she made
| Oliver eat nothing, that is nothing but beets for Months. His weight
| plummeted and then soon after the strokes started. Obviously the
| quickly massive weight loss without the proper Doctoring was too much
| for his heart and led to an early death. I remember this conversation
| as if it were yesterday. I only wish I had a tape recorder running.
| Lucille was a very sweet woman. The fact that she was doing what she
| felt was best for a man she obviously loved dearly, did not make her a
| murderer by any stretch of the imagination. We all comforted her and
| assured her of the same. This is just a sad footnote to the pre-mature
| passing of one of our most beloved comedians. Has anyone ever heard
| that story before?

I hadn't. But even if Lucille wholeheartedly went along with a clearly stupid
diet, she didn't hold a gun to Babe's head and force him to go through with it.

Larc