Speaking of Mr. Laurel, here’s a question I’ve only once gotten a satisfactory answer for and then I promptly forgot it. Just what kind of derby is that worn by Stan? The late Tony Hawes once said it was some sort of schoolboy hat of some sort, but I’ve never seen another one like it, except for the hundreds that Stan wore over the years. I was told by someone who worked on the Roach lot that if you went into wardrobe, they’d be lined up on a shelf, just waiting for the next one to get ruined. I’ve never seen an original one in person. Even Lois Laurel, Stan’s daughter, doesn’t have one. She has Stan’s straw boater that he used to wear off camera, but not a derby. Lucille Hardy, Oliver’s widow, supposedly had one of his derbys, although I never got to see that, either.

It’s an unusual derby because the brim is flat instead of curved. Jim MacGeorge, who I wrote about in the last item, told me he takes a regular derby and cuts part of the brim off, then sews a finishing ribbon back around the edge. Was this how Stan’s hats were made or was it an existing style that you could have bought back in the 20’s or 30’s? Anybody out there know?

Stan Laurel’s famous flat-brimmed derby. Could you buy one off the shelf?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 31st, 2006 at 8:56 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.