The Real Story of How the Hal Roach Studio Began
That tale starts in 1914 when the struggling young movie actor Harold Eugene “Hal” Roach (1892–1992) came into money through an inheritance, often stated as $3,000.
Roach used that windfall to form a film production company with the businessman Dan Linthicum (1878–1952), combining the first letters of their last names to create the trademark “Rolin.”
Linthicum soon left the business, and a few years later Roach renamed the company after himself. His friend Harold Lloyd had become the studio’s star, first as Lonesome Luke and then in eyeglasses. Then came the Our Gang series, Charley Chase, and finally Laurel and Hardy. The independent Roach studio became Hollywood’s most successful and classiest supplier of comedy shorts.
That version of Roach’s story also says that in 1916 he married the actress Marguerite Nichols (1896–1941), and they had two children together. The year after Marguerite died, Hal married Lucille Prin (1913–1981), and they had four more daughters. Hal Roach’s obituaries referred to Marguerite as his “first wife.”
In fact, Marguerite was Hal’s second wife, and Hal didn’t receive an inheritance in 1914.
I started looking into this story in the spring after hearing Steve Massa speak about how Rolin got started on the “Becoming Harold Lloyd” episode of the Man in the Glasses podcast. Dave Lord Heath’s delight-filled website offers more details, as does Find a Grave, and I dug into newspapers for additional stories.
Like the great Hollywood story Citizen Kane, this tale begins with a mine.
TOMORROW: The fatal shaft.
