Babe London

Birthday: Aug 28, 1901

Bio: A delightful comedienne, rotund Babe London reportedly began her screen career as a teenager after purchasing a makeup kit. She played a switchboard operator in Douglas Fairbanks' When the Clouds Roll By (1919) but hit her stride for comedy companies Christie and Educational in the 1920s. Scrambled Eggs (1925), from the latter studio, is extant and features London… More Bio: A delightful comedienne, rotund Babe London reportedly began her screen career as a teenager after purchasing a makeup kit. She played a switchboard operator in Douglas Fairbanks' When the Clouds Roll By (1919) but hit her stride for comedy companies Christie and Educational in the 1920s. Scrambled Eggs (1925), from the latter studio, is extant and features London as a correspondence bride, who has used the oldest trick in the book and substituted her own portrait with that of glamorous friend Helen Marlowe. Today, however, London is best remembered for her onetime-only partnership with Oliver Hardy, in the 1931 Laurel and Hardy two-reeler Our Wife. London plays Hardy's equally hefty fiancée and the comedy's absolute highlight has Stan Laurel attempting to squeeze the hefty couple, as well as himself, into a tiny automobile. According to London, the sequence took two days and quite a bit of bruising to complete, mainly because of the mirth it generated among the crew. Continuing to appear in minor roles on screen until 1970, Babe London was also an accomplished artist, whose series of paintings depicting various silent stars is housed at the University of Wyoming. ~ Hans J. Wollstein, Rovi