a 'loan shark' – is played with rare power and comic results of seriousness by James Finlayson". Finlayson sent to Scotland for his close friend Andy Clyde, urging him to come to America and join Finlayson at the Sennett studio. Clyde arrived in 1922 and became a fixture at Sennett, as a versatile character actor. Finlayson himself, however, did not establish himself as star material and left Sennett's employ later that year. Hal Roach Studios Finlayson was hired almost immediately by Sennett's rival, Hal Roach, who gave him supporting roles in his studio's Snub Pollard and Stan Laurel comedies. With Roach's biggest short-subject star Harold Lloyd moving on to features, Roach tried to start new series with Charley Chase (successfully) and James Finlayson (unsuccessfully). The next step came in 1927 when Roach's All-Star Comedy series gave Finlayson equal billing with up-and-coming co-stars Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy, comedian Edna Marion, and others; some studio publicity even referred to Finlayson, Hardy, and Laurel as a "famous comedy trio." But Roach staff producer and future Academy Award director Leo McCarey recognized the great potential of a Laurel-and-Hardy pairing and began developing their characters and expanding their roles. By the autumn of 1928, Laurel and Hardy had their own starring series while the All-Star Comedy series soldiered on with other comedians. Nonetheless, Finlayson was still "considered by many to be an indispensable part of the Laurel & Hardy team." Altogether, Finlayson played roles in 33 Laurel and Hardy films, usually as a villain or an antagonist, in such films Big Business (1929) and Way Out West (1937). Beside that, he starred alongside Stan Laurel in 19 films and opposite Oliver Hardy in five films before Laurel and Hardy were teamed together; he appeared in dozens of Roach Studio films, with Charley Chase, Glenn Tryon, Snub Pollard, and Ben Turpin, and in several Our Gang shorts, including Mush and Milk, in which he and Spanky McFarland match wits in a comically adversarial phone conversation. Finlayson later played uncredited bit parts in films such as Foreign Correspondent (1940), To Be or Not to Be (1942), and Royal Wedding (1951). He was often called upon for silent-comedy reunions like Hollywood Cavalcade (1939) and The Perils of Pauline (1947). Personal life and death He married Emily Cora Gilbert, an American citizen from Iowa, in 1919 and became a US citizen in 1942. English actress Stephanie Insall and