Oliver Hardy wounded at the Battle of Antietam on September 17, 1862 and was a recruiting officer for Company K, 16th Georgia Regiment. The elder Oliver Hardy assisted his father in running the vestiges of the family cotton plantation following the Civil War. He then bought a share in a retail business and was elected full-time Tax Collector for Columbia County, Georgia. Hardy's mother Emily Norvell was the daughter of Thomas Benjamin Norvell and Mary Freeman, descended from Captain Hugh Norvell of Williamsburg, Virginia who arrived in Virginia before 1635. The elder Hardy and Norvell married March 12, 1890; it was her
Oliver Hardy of this film survive. In 1931, they starred in their first full-length movie "Pardon Us", and they continued to make features and shorts until 1935. The 1932 film "The Music Box" won an Academy Award for best short film, their only effort to receive such an award. In 1937, Hardy and Myrtle Reeves divorced. He made "Zenobia" with Harry Langdon in 1939 while waiting for a contractual issue to be resolved between Laurel and Hal Roach. Eventually, however, new contracts were agreed upon and the team was lent to producer Boris Morros at General Service Studios to make "The Flying