HARLEM - Sons of the Desert, a Little Rascal and hundreds of fans gathered at the opening of the Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem, Ga. - hometown of comic Oliver Hardy. <br>
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Now that the museum is up and running, residents hope it also will attract tourism dollars. If not, Robert Baldowski said, it will at least provide entertainment. <br>
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``It's a good clean event for people to bring their family to,'' he said Monday. ``It was funny then, and it's funny now.'' <br>
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The museum displays an assortment of artifacts and movie memorabilia about ``Ollie and Stan,'' America's early slapstick team known for films like ``Way Out West'' (1937) and ``Sons of the Desert'' (1933). <br>
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Actress Jean Darling, who worked with Hardy in the 1934 film ``Babes in Toyland'' when she was 4, said the trip brought her closer to her mentor. <br>
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``It's a great honor to have someone as famous as (Hardy) be born here,'' said Darling, who also appeared as one of the Little Rascals. <br>
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Hardy was born Jan. 18, 1892 in Harlem, located 20 miles west of Augusta. He died in 1957. <br>
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According to the duo's official website, 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>
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Busloads arrived at the newly renovated museum Monday from the Sons of the Desert International Laurel and Hardy Appreciation Society convention in Nashville, Tenn. <br>
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``We've been waiting for this day for a long time,'' said Steve Brown, convention host and official projectionist for the annual Oliver Hardy Festival. <br>
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It was Simon Calvert's sixth trip to America. <br>
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``This is a dream come true,'' said Calvert, of Yorkshire, England. ``If I had one chance to go to a place in the world, this would be it."
