I had been a huge fan of Laurel and Hardy films since a good friend of mine first introduced them to me on the big screen at a small theater in Hollywood when we were in high school. Oh, I'd seen Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy's hilarious antics over and over on television ever since we'd had our first set in the late 1940s. But until I saw them on a movie screen over ten years later, I had only thought of them as minor comedians, right along with Charlie Chase and many others whose films were sold to TV in those early days. But when I saw the same movies I'd watched as a youngster on television projected onto that larger screen, I not only liked them more, I fell in love with them. Maybe I needed those extra years in order to appreciate them for what they were--brilliant. In 1962 I was an actor. An out of work actor going to college while I waited for that phone to ring. Another high school friend of mine had been lucky enough to land himself a recurring role on the television series, My Three Sons. My friend had worked with someone on that show who had complimented him on his facial expressions and physical resemblance to Stan Laurel. The two of them talked for a while and finally the other actor said he thought the two should meet. He gave my friend Stan Laurel's phone number and told him to call Stan. He was certain the elderly comic would enjoy talking to him. I received a call from my friend asking if I would like to meet Laurel. I said Yes, of course. So when my friend made his phone call the following day, I'm not sure if we got an invitation from Stan himself, or if my friend just out and asked if we could drop by for a visit. However it happened, it happened. We were to meet with Stan Laurel the next day at 10:00 am in his apartment in Santa Monica. The only thing pretentious about the address where Laurel lived was the view. His apartment was located on Ocean Avenue which runs parallel to the beach, on the cliff overlooking the Pacific Ocean. My friend and I commented on the fact that those same cliffs were used in a lot of early Hollywood comedy shorts, and wondered if Stan had ever considered using them as a location in the silent days. All of the questions I had rehearsed and stored in my head just flew away when the apartment door opened and Stan Laurel stood there before us. We entered the rather small apartment and introduced ourselves. Stan introduced us to his wife and we all sat down to chat. A few things were said about my friend's facial expressions and overall resemblance to Stan, but that's about as far as the conversation went. I don't know what my friend was feeling at the time. I only know that I felt what thousands of girls must have felt several years later when the Beatles toured the States--I was mesmerized. I couldn't speak. I did manage a stupid question. I asked him if he knew how many Model-T Fords they destroyed while making all those Laurel and Hardy shorts. My friend asked a few stupid questions, too, like "Was Oliver Hardy a nice man?" Stupid questions. Finally I saw it, sitting on top of an old suitcase with Stan's initials carved into it. It was Stan's Academy Award--his Oscar--given to him by the Academy and the entire motion picture business for all he had contributed to it in its infancy. "Pick it up," he told me. I did. And as I felt the weight of that wonderful, golden statue, thinking that one day I might be blessed enough to have one of my own, Stan Laurel stood up and moved closer to me. "It was nice that they gave this to me, don't you think?" My friend and I nodded. "Shake that Oscar. Does it jingle?" he said. "It's just a shame, with all the television showings, movie theater presentations and Laurel and Hardy Festivals all over the world, I don't get one penny in residuals for anything I ever did."