Laurel & Chaplin: The Feud

The Facts Behind Laurel and Chaplin: The Feud

Fred Karno – the impresario who teamed Chaplin and Laurel in his shows

Frederick John Westcott (1866 – 1941), best known by his stage name Fred Karno, was an English theatre producer of music hall sketch comedy and pantomime. A famous and successful millionaire, he died broke and forgotten.

Film producer Hal Roach said: “Fred Karno is not only a genius, he originated slapstick comedy. We in Hollywood owe much to him.”

Both Chaplin and Laurel acknowledged the debt they owed him for giving them their break and teaching them so much. Given that Chaplin and Laurel largely wrote the rules for screen comedy, Karno can take credit for an influence over all of 20th century culture.

His most successful sketch was ‘Mumming Birds’, in America re-titled ‘A Night In An English Music Hall’. This sketch ran for forty years with revivals by Karno’s sons as late as the mid 1940s. The show was a show within a show, with a series of terrible music hall acts being heckled by a drunken Toff and a naughty schoolboy, sitting in theatre boxes. It was his performance as the drunken Toff which made Chaplin’s name and brought him to the attention of Mack Sennett at Keystone studios in America in 1912. Stan Laurel also appeared in Mumming Birds alongside Chaplin, they shared digs on the Karno tours of America in 1910 and 1912, and Laurel is often described as being Chaplin’s understudy. Although Laurel said this about himself, in truth Chaplin had no understudy; all the actors in a Karno troupe had to be able to cover for each other, Chaplin included, he was no different to his fellow players. Laurel always recognised Chaplin’s brilliance and was quick to credit him – his description of himself as Chaplin’s understudy being a typical Laurel self effacing comment. Chaplin in contrast never acknowledged Laurel’s role in his early career.

Stan is also in the cast of the Karno show, but Chaplin is clearly the star turn.

Promotional posters for “The Wow-Wows”, “A Night in a London Secret Society”, “A Night in a London Club”, “A Night in an English Music Hall”, “Mumming Birds” and “Football Match”. Stan is in the cast of the show, but Chaplin is clearly the star turn. [1912]

“A Night in a London Club” toured in 1912; “A Night in an English Music Hall” was performed at the Majestic on 18 April 1911; in “Mumming Birds” Chaplin was playing the role of the drunk; “Football Match” was performed at the Empire Theatre in Oldham on 3 May. Fred Karno above Charlie. Stan manages to get billing in the bottom right corner.

Chaplin and Laurel both held Karno in high regard. Stan Laurel said:

“Fred Karno didn’t teach Charlie and me all we know about comedy, he just taught us most of it. Above all he taught us to be supple and precise. Out of all that endless rehearsal and performance came Charlie Chaplin, the most supple and precise comedian of our time.”

Famously, Chaplin never referred to Stan in his 500 page biography, despite being in the same show and rooming with him for two years at the start of their careers. There is no known meeting of the two during the glory years of the 20s and 30s when they were two of the few British stars in Hollywood and both comedy icons. There are many images of Chaplin with Houdini and Buster Keaton.

Charlie was a renowned Hollywood party goer and good friends with many stars like Houdini. He even formed United Artists studios with other big stars, being the first to break the Hollywood studio system. There is no known record that Stan and Charlie ever met again, leading to the logical conclusion there must have been a silent feud where they avoided each other!

The comedy play ‘Laurel and Chaplin – The Feud’ seeks to explain why.

Fred Karno, the man who discovered Charlie Chaplin (and had an off-licence in Poole)

Bournemouth Echo report on the last years of Karno, now retired and financially ruined

The legendary showman Fred Karno – who also set Stan Laurel on the path to Hollywood fame – spent his later life in Poole and ran Lilliput Wine Stores.

Poole genealogist Roy Stockdill wrote to the Echo earlier this year to ask whether anyone could help identify where exactly the shop stood.

He heard back from Poole historian and former town clerk Ian Andrews, who had already researched Karno’s life and had a copy of a 1939 street directory. It established that Karno was then living above a ladies’ hairdresser at 294 Sandbanks Road. His off-licence at number 296 is now the estate agency EweMove.

Some of his old friends and employees in the Music Hall Variety Fund clubbed together to raise some money – including Chaplin, by then one of the most famous people in the world, who put in £1,000 to enable him to buy a part-share in the off-licence.

It is unclear how long he had the off-licence, but by September 1939, he and Marie had moved to 24 Wharfdale Road, Parkstone, where he died in September 1941, aged 75.

Chaplin sent a wreath to his funeral at Bournemouth Crematorium.