Death
Laurel was a heavy smoker until suddenly quitting around 1960. In January 1965, he underwent a series of x-rays for an infection on the roof of his mouth. He died on 23 February 1965, aged 74, four days after suffering a heart attack on 19 February. Just minutes away from death, Laurel told his nurse he would not mind going skiing right at that very moment. Somewhat taken aback, the nurse replied that she was not aware that he was a skier. "I'm not," said Laurel, "I'd rather be doing that than this!" A few minutes later the nurse looked in on him again and found that he had died quietly in his armchair.
At his funeral, silent screen comedian Buster Keaton was overheard giving his assessment of the comedian's considerable talent: "Chaplin wasn't the funniest, I wasn't the funniest, this man was the funniest." Dick Van Dyke, a friend, protege and occasional impressionist of Laurel during his later years, gave the eulogy, reading A Prayer for Clowns.
Laurel had quipped: "If anyone at my funeral has a long face, I'll never speak to him again."
Laurel was interred in Forest Lawn-Hollywood Hills Cemetery.
Read more about this topic: Stan Laurel
Famous quotes containing the word death:
“To die, to sleep—
No more, and by a sleep to say we end
The heartache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to—’tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep.
To sleep, perchance to dream. Ay, there’s the rub,
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
When we have shuffled off this mortal coil
Must give us pause.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“I thought of all that worked dark pits
Of war, and died
Digging the rock where Death reputes
Peace lies indeed.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)
“Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and in which the degree of brilliance in the performance is left to the fighter’s honor.”
—Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961)