Dr. John McCabe was the first and best historian of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy As I recounted in this article, he wrote the first book about them, Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy, and it had a deep, positive impact on me. (When the piece was first published, it brought me a nice letter from Dr. McCabe. I have scarcely been happier to hear from anyone.) McCabe was the only biographer of Stan and Ollie to know both men — he was especially close to Laurel — and it was his writings that more or less inaugurated a wave of scholarship and appreciation of their films. He taught college courses about them, often as an overview of twentieth-century humor, and followed Mr. Laurel and Mr. Hardy with additional works on The Boys and he also authored books on Charlie Chaplin, James Cagney, George M. Cohan and others. In 1987, he married actress Rosina Lawrence, who co-starred opposite Laurel and Hardy in their 1937 movie, Way Out West, and they were wed until her passing ten years later. That's her in the photo above with him.
I'm sorry to report that Dr. McCabe passed away yesterday morning as he slept in his home in Mackinac Island, Michigan. I have no other info but I had to note the passing of a man whose work was so important to so many of us.