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Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} Our Gang The Life and Times of the Little Rascals by Leonard Maltin ‘The Little Rascals’: Norman Chaney, Who Preferred ‘Chubsy-Ubsy,’ Had a Short and Sad Life. Norman was born October 18, 1914, in Cambridge, Maryland, and found the road to stardom at about the same time that the sound era began in movies. Coincidentally, the heavy-set Joe Cobb was aging out of the series, which meant that producer Hal Roach and director Robert F. McGowan were looking for someone younger, but with a similar build. They found him in Norman, who was 3′ 11″ at the time and weighed about 113 pounds. Given the name “Chubby,” he made his debut in the second sound short, “Rail Roadin’,” and would appear in a total of 19 films over the next two years. Described Leonard Maltin and Richard W. Bann in their book, The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang , “The changing of the guard was celebrated in publicity photos and stories and an entire film. ‘Boxing Gloves’ was contrived to feature the two fat-boys of Our Gang before Joe Cobb retired and Chubby took his place … His natural flair for comic dialogue and his open, friendly personality made Chubby an instant hit in Our Gang .” Only a Short Time with the ‘Gang’ Generally speaking, Norman’s time as part of the group was relatively short, part of the problem being that it was obvious that he was getting a little taller and was definitely putting on more weight without really trying. When his contract with Hal Roach Studios wasn’t renewed in 1931, he and his parents agreed that acting was not for him and they moved back to Baltimore. There he attended public school and did very well in his classes. Unfortunately, while his height stopped at 4′ 7″, his weight ballooned to 300 pounds. Eventually, it was discovered that he suffered a glandular ailment. He underwent a treatment for it in 1935 at John Hopkins University and, as a result, his weight dropped pretty quickly from 300 pounds to 140. The process continued until he’d gotten down to 110 pounds and he would shock everyone by dying on May 29, 1936, of myocarditis (an inflammation of the heart muscle). He was only 21. The next day, The Chattanooga News featured a short item with the terrible headline, “ Our Gang Comedy Fat Boy is Dead.” The piece reads, “Norman Chubby Chaney, the fat boy of Our Gang comedies, is dead. He was 17 [sic] years old. The boy returned here in 1932 after two years in Hollywood. He became ill last year and went to the John Hopkins Hospital for treatment to a glandular ailment. He failed to rally after an operation and died yesterday at the home of his parents.” BARGAIN DAY, Allen ‘Farina’ Hoskins, Bobby ‘Wheezer’ Hutchins, Jackie Cooper, Norman ‘Chubby’ Chaney, Shirley Jean Rickert, Pete the Pup, Mary Ann Jackson, Dorothy DeBorba, 1931. While Norman was buried in Baltimore Cemetery, there was no headstone on his grave due to the fact that his mother couldn’t afford one for him or herself. Amazingly, 76 years later, Detroit rock musicians MIKAL managed to organize a fundraiser, pulling together $4,500 for headstones to be placed on their graves — a remarkable thing to do so many years after Norman’s passing. Our Gang, from left: Matthew ‘Stymie’ Beard, Dorothy DeBorba, Bobby ‘Wheezer’ Hutchins, Jackie Cooper, Pete the Pup, Norman ‘Chubby’ Chaney, Allen ‘Farina’ Hoskins, Mary Ann Jackson, Donald Haines, ca. 1931. Around the time of his death, the “Little Hollywood” column of The Salt Lake Tribune offered up this tribute: “From Chubby Chaney, I have a letter, buried somewhere on one of my fives shelves, and I can remember some of the things he said: ‘I have a pony, but can’t ride it, for when I get up on its back, the poor thing actually cries. I am too short to ride a horse, so I can’t ride anything at all. I have a dog which I love so much I feel that it is part of me. Some day I should like to play baseball like other boys, but I am so heavy that I can’t run. Write a nice story about me now, and can I have my picture in the paper?’ Poor, good-natured Chubby. He wanted to be ‘just like other boys.’ He died following an operation. Well, I did write the ‘article’ after all, didn’t I? But it isn’t anything like what I had planned.” ‘Our Gang’ Curse. Are actors from the 'Our Gang' series the victims of a curse causing them to die unexpectedly young? David Mikkelson Published 20 April 2005. Claim. Rating. Origin. -->Classifying this entry about a purported Our Gang curse as “True” or “False” is a bit problematic: Although the facts stated in the example above are mostly true, we’ve listed this item as false because the implied significance of these facts — that they represent an unusually high pattern of tragic deaths amongst a selected group — is not supported by the evidence: Example: [Collected via e-mail, 2005] Gee, rough neighborhood! Remember Our Gang? What ever happened to those people? Well, here it is………..sad……….. THE OUR GANG CURSE… Alfalfa — Carl Switzer was shot to death at age 31. Chubby — 300-pound Norman Chaney died at age 22 following an operation. Buckwheat — William Thomas died at age 49 of a heart attack. Darla Hood — The Our Gang leading lady contracted hepatitis and died at age 47. Brisbane — Kendall McCormas, known as Breezy Brisbane, committed suicide at age 64. Froggy — William Robert Laughline was killed in a motor scooter accident at age 16. Mickey Daniels — He died of liver disease at 55. Stymie — Mathew Bear led a life of crime and drugs. He died of a stroke at age 56. Scotty Beckett — He died at age 38 following a brutal beating. Wheezer — Robert Hutchins was killed in an airplane accident at age 19. Pete the Pup — He was poisoned by an unknown assailant. and Spanky…….Robert Blake is accused of murdering his wife (recently acquitted) In general, most “curse” lists which supposedly document remarkably high levels of premature deaths and other tragedies of life within a group of people connected by some common bond should be taken as nothing more than frivolous entertainment because they are constructed through a number of misleading means: They list only entries that fit the assumed pattern, omitting any mention of the (usually much larger) group of entries that don’t fit the pattern. They include inaccurate or distorted information in order to bolster their length with entries that don’t appropriately belong there. They make the ordinary and commonplace seem unusual through the use of selective inclusion. To amplify on that last point, we’d explain it this way: If one were to choose any group of thirty or so people born in the U.S. in the 1920s and 1930s and follow them through the course of their lives, it wouldn’t be the least bit unusual to find that several of those people died well short of the average life expectancies of their times due to disease, accident, homicide, or suicide. People get sick, die in accidents, and kill each other (or themselves) all the time — these are the facts of life, sad as they are. Such deaths may be tragedies, but they’re hardly outside the pale of ordinary human experience. Before we launch into specifics, let’s briefly run down the lives of the 29 child actors who were regulars (i.e., appeared in fifteen or more installments) of the 221 Our Gang comedies (also known as The Little Rascals ) produced between 1922 and 1944. This information was compiled from Leonard Maltin’s book ( The Little Rascals: The Life and Times of Our Gang ), the Internet Movie Database (IMDb), and various news accounts: Ernest Frederic Morrison (“Sunshine Sammy”): Appeared in 28 installments. Successful post-Rascals career in show business and aerospace industry. Died of cancer at age 76. John Condon (“Jackie”): Appeared in 28 installments. Successful post-Rascals career as an accountant. Died of cancer at age 59. Allen Clayton Hoskins, Jr. (“Farina”): Appeared in 105 installments. Successful post-Rascals career as a psychological technician. Died of cancer at age 59. Richard Daniels, Jr. (“Mickey”): Appeared in 49 installments. Continued to work in show business in his post-Rascals career, then entered the engineering field and largely dropped out of sight after moving to Africa. Spent the last three years of his life as a taxi driver before dying alone in a San Diego hotel room of cirrhosis of the liver at age 55. John H. Davis: (“Jackie”): Appeared in 19 installments. Successful post-Rascals career as a doctor. Died at age 78. Mary A. Kornman (“Mary”): Appeared in 41 installments. Successful post-Rascals career in show business. Died of cancer at age 57. Joe Cobb (“Joe”): Appeared in 86 installments. Successful post-Rascals career in aerospace. Died at age 85. Andy Samuel (“Andy”): Appeared in 86 installments. Successful post-Rascals career in show business and art store management. Died at age 82. John Morey Downs (“Johnny”): Appeared in 24 installments. Successful post-Rascals career in show business and real estate. Died of cancer at age 80. Jay R. Smith (“Jay”): Appeared in 36 installments. Successful post-Rascals career in the retail business. Stabbed to death in Las Vegas at age 87 by a homeless man whom he had befriended. Jean Darling (“Jean”): Appeared in 35 installments.