Awed like everyone else by Chaplin's genius (and ambition and cruelty), Stan Laurel despaired of ever finding his own path to success or happiness. When impresario Hal Roach put him and Oliver Hardy, affectionately known as Babe, together on screen, the partnership bloomed into a professional and personal relationship of lifelong depth. Laurel became one of the greatest screen comedians the world has ever known. He knew both adoration and humiliation; loved, and was loved. He never sought to cause pain to anyone else, yet left a trail of affairs and broken marriages in his wake. But his life was ultimately defined by one relationship of tenderness and devotion that only death could sever: his love for Babe.