Georgia town rests laurels on comic Oliver Hardy

HARLEM - Sons of the Desert, a Little Rascal and hundreds of fans gathered at the opening of the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem, the east Georgia hometown of comic Oliver Hardy. <br> <br> Now that the museum is open, people in Harlem are hoping it will lure tourists off Interstate 20. But if not, at least it will provide a few laughs for folks in Columbia County. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s a good clean event for people to bring their family to,&#39;&#39; Harlem resident Robert Baldowski said Monday at the grand opening. ``It was funny then, and it&#39;s funny now.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> The museum displays an assortment of artifacts and movie memorabilia about ``Ollie and Stan,&#39;&#39; America&#39;s early slapstick team known for films like ``Way Out West&#39;&#39; (1937) and ``Sons of the Desert&#39;&#39; (1933). <br> <br> Actress Jean Darling, who worked with Hardy in the 1934 film ``Babes in Toyland&#39;&#39; when she was 4, said the trip to Harlem was a chance to see where her mentor was born. <br> <br> ``It&#39;s a great honor to have someone as famous as (Hardy) be born here,&#39;&#39; said Darling, who also appeared as one of the Little Rascals in the ``Our Gang&#39;&#39; short films. <br> <br> Hardy was born Jan. 18, 1892, in the small town 20 miles west of Augusta. He died in 1957. <br> <br> According to the duo&#39;s official Web site, Hardy opened a movie theater in Milledgeville before finding work as an actor in Jacksonville, Fla. He later moved to Hollywood, and by the mid-1920s, he was a comic at the Hal Roach studio. He teamed up with Stan Laurel in 1926. <br> <br> Busloads arrived at the newly renovated museum Monday from the Sons of the Desert International Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society convention in Nashville. <br> <br> ``We&#39;ve been waiting for this day for a long time,&#39;&#39; said Steve Brown, convention host and official projectionist for the annual Oliver Hardy Festival. <br> <br> It was a sixth trip to America for Laurel and Hardy fan Simon Calvert. <br> <br> ``This is a dream come true,&#39;&#39; said Calvert, of Yorkshire, England. ``If I had one chance to go to a place in the world, this would be it.&#39;&#39;