Mae as May—From The Playgoer, 5 April 1910. Courtesy Nick Murphy.May Charlotte Dahlberg was born on 24 May 1888 in Brunswick, Victoria. Her father an immigrant Sweedish labourer and mother a Miss Gundry, originally from Adelaide. Young May displays an early interest in dancing and performing, undertaking the usual childhood lessons. Success arrives when she is selected at age 18 to join a travelling company to Hobart, Tasmania appearing at the Temperance Hall in August 1906.
As an 18-year-old ‘serio & dancer’, May meets Rupert William Cuthbert, a baritone and picture balladist. Romance blossomed either backstage or onstage and by December the newly married couple are next appearing at the Hippodrome in Adelaide, SA The South Australian Advertiser reports their performance as, ‘Miss May Dahlberg & Mr. Rupert Cuthbert at once won their way into good graces of the audience, who were reluctant to let them leave the stage’.
After Adelaide the newlyweds return to live with May’s parents in Brunswick. A son, Rupert Clifton Saxe Cuthbert was born on 4 April 1907. Between late 1907 to 1912 the pair appeared in music halls across eastern Australia. Newspaper reports record these ‘theatrical entertainers’ in the mining township of Broken Hill in 1909, Hobart in 1910, Brisbane and Sydney in 1912, delivering ‘vaudeville items’. Reviews of their ‘clever dancing’ appear after each performance. In 1909 the census has the family living with Rupert’s family in Albert Park, Victoria. Rupert is listed by trade as a ‘vocalist’, May as undertaking ‘home duties’. Obviously, the census taker had not seen May on-stage. Around this time, M-A-Y becomes M-A-E.
One further Australian reference is cited—the three Cuthbert’s left Australia on the RMS Niagara, arriving in Seattle, Washington on 28 May 1913. Soon after arrival, a separation and later divorce is undertaken. Baby Rupert is left with his father who heads east and settles with relatives in Boston. Mae also heads east and grabs any vaudeville work she can. By 1916, Mae is one-half of a vaudeville dancing duo named the ‘Hayden Sisters’.
Mae Dahlberg with Stan Laurel in vaudeville, c.1917. Author’s collection.
Enter struggling English comic Arthur Stanley Jefferson, trying to hit the big time and replicate the success of his friend Charles Chaplin. Both comics toured the US with the English Fred Karno company, Arthur understudying Charles. Sometime in 1917, Mae & Stan become a private and professional partnership. Mae is credited with ‘making the suggestion’ that Stan Jefferson change his name to Stan Laurel after sighting a poster or book with a sketch of a Roman general wearing a laurel wreath. Reasons given by Stan Laurel later confirmed that the stage name he was using had 13 letters and actor superstition resulted. Also, shorter names were easier to fit on external theatre advertising.
The couple found work on the Pantages vaudeville circuit—Stan wrote a ‘Nutty Burglar’ act—Stan as the burglar, Mae as the ingénue. The act was a hit and kept them in work. Mae emerged at a time when Stan needed her most.
By mid 1917 the General Manager at Universal Pictures, Isadore Bernstein, took them on for a series of quick one-reelers, popular comedy items at the time. A single film reel at silent speed of 18 frames per second ran for approximately ten minutes. Single reel projectors could therefore easily project single reel films. Released over 1917 & 1918, five shorts featuring the couple are known to have been released but were not that successful. Stan Laurel had yet to find his comic style and rhythm on film but showed promise. Mae was deemed an ‘acceptable’ leading lady.
Mae with Stan Laurel—on a film set in the early 1920s. Author’s collection.
Mae Dahlberg on screen. Author’s collection.
Successful independent producer Hal Roach invited Stan to make a screen test in 1918—his foil was the North Melbourne born Australian comic Snub Pollard. Roach liked the test and a series of shorts resulted. They sadly were only mildly successful with the public and Stan reluctantly then accepted an invitation to play ‘second banana’ to popular comic Larry Semon. This professional relationship did not last as Stan received greater laughs than Larry—Semon being a jealous and somewhat insecure comic. Oddly Stan’s future partner Oliver Hardy later supported Semon in a series of successful films in the mid 1920s. Easy-going comic actor Hardy was perceived by Semon as no threat and teamed well. Their most successful film together was The Wizard of Oz—a silent version of the well-loved L. Frank Baum story in 1925. Hardy played the tin man.
After the Larry Semon experience, Stan left Roach and with Mae returned to vaudeville and a strained relationship. Both proved strong-willed and rather tempestuous. Working well on stage however didn’t replicate to the dressing room or the bedroom. They struggled on as vaudeville was slowly surrendering to the movies, hoping for stardom through the early 1920s.
Independent producer Joe Rock signed Stan for a series of comedies in late 1924 as solo performer. Rock clearly stipulated that Mae was ‘not to be part of the package’. After a number of ‘dramatic incidents’, Mae finally agreed in early 1925 to return to Australia if Rock financed her passage with spending money. It cost him $500 and the deal was struck. Stan is reputed to have jumped up and down on the dock as the ship departed, yelling ‘She’s finally gone, she’s finally out of my life’.
Mae assumed that as she had been Laurel’s long time stage partner, she would automatically be his screen partner. Joe Rock many years later stated that Mae was a talented actress but kept insisting on playing ‘leading ladies’. He believed she would have done well as a character actress but just simply would not let go of any leading part.
Returning to Melbourne, Mae is reported to have married local ‘actor’ Jack Wall in 1929. No proof of this union can be located. The next seven years are a mystery—I speculate a frustrating return to live with family in Melbourne, an actress and dancer now out of the limelight and begrudgingly cursing the successful Laurel & Hardy film comedies being shown locally. No interest or proof of contact with son Rupert can be located.
The frustration erupted when Mae returned to Stan’s life in November of 1936 chasing alimony for all the ‘struggling years together as his common law wife’. Mae was seeking $1000 per month as obviously Stan was now a wealthy movie star and she had fallen on hard times during the depression. The outcome was never made public, but I believe an ‘out of court, one off final settlement was made’. Stan Laurel, a self-confessed womaniser, married many times and in later years stated that he wished he had been more interested in men like many of his stage and screen friends, as he would not have surrendered his wealth in constant alimony settlements. I sincerely doubt this logic would work in the 21st century.
Mae with her scrap book, November 1936. Author’s collection.
Hazel Harrison and Tom Vickers were great-niece and great-nephew to Mae on her mother’s side of the family. Hazel recalls a ‘fun loving lady I believe did coaching for the theatre while in the US’. Tom recalled meeting her at his grandmother’s house in Footscray, Victoria in 1946. ‘She seemed to run hot and cold in her memories of Stan Laurel. She told me he was a clever man, just the opposite of the simpleton he portrays. She was a very outspoken woman, very dominant and according to my father, very well versed in politics’ recalled Tom.
Australian playwright David Allen penned Gone with Hardy in 1978 for the Melbourne Theatre Company. It tells of Stan Laurel’s stormy relationship with an Australian woman before his successful teaming with Oliver Hardy.
Mae Dahlberg chose to end her days in New York, USA. She died in a nursing time sometime in 1969, outliving Stan Laurel by four years.
A version of this article also appeared in the printed version of On Stage, Winter 2012
