Laurel & Hardy at 100: LMI’s Andrew Maconie on licensing film’s most loved duo

Andrew, LMI represents Laurel and Hardy in the UK, Europe and elsewhere… And I understand 2026 marks 100 years of the duo?
Yes, it’s the 100th anniversary of the first time Laurel and Hardy shared the screen. That was a film called 45 Minutes from Hollywood. They were both in one film together before that – they didn’t have any time together, though. But to celebrate the 100th, the estate is planning an anniversary documentary on the usual apps: amazon, Apple TV and Netflix… I suspect there’ll be quite a lot of media coverage next year which is going to be helpful not only for our existing licenses, but also for our potential licenses as well.

Perfect! So not officially a Laurel and Hardy film, but 100 years of their first on-screen appearance together – a pivotal moment in cinema.
Oh, absolutely. It’s a huge thing to have those two on screen together. You know, slapstick always works – it carries on through the ages, and they do it better than most.

Do you think that’s why they still endure, Andrew?
Yes! Their shows are available to this day so people of all generations who like to have a laugh can still see them. Nowadays, of course, most comedians have to be extremely careful what they say, but that’s less true with slapstick. It doesn’t seem to age; people enjoy watching that kind of humour even when it’s in black and white. And it never was offensive! I think their style was very much family humour, slapstick and a little verbal humour too… Daft fun that still seems to work 100 years on.

Agreed. You mention the estate, Andrew. Who runs that?
The Laurel and Hardy estate is run by the daughter of Larry Harmon, Marci Breth-Cabaret. Marci took on the empire when Larry passed away in 2008. Larry Harmon was a good friend of ours… In the old days – before we had the licensing show in Vegas – we used to gather at Larry Harmon’s enormous apartment on 54th Street in New York and he’d give us all a pep talk. He was a real character!

Why might I know his name, Andrew? It’s ringing a vague bell…
In America, Larry Harmon was also known as Bozo the Clown. He was a very famous performer in his own right. But yes – he took over the Laurel and Hardy estate, and his daughter looks after it now.

Good Lord! It would’ve taken me awhile to join the dots, but yes. Larry Harmon: Bozo the Clown. And in terms of Laurel and Hardy licensing, what’s coming up for you?
We’ve got special six-inch figurines coming from Wandering Planet Toys, which are going to be really good. We’ve also got a long-term licensee in Italy – Infinite Statue – designing a limited-edition Laurel and Hardy collection for 2026. Italy is an incredible market, actually, and Infinite Statue is one of our longest-term licences. There’ll be a coin… I’m not going to go into any details on it, but there’re a number of other projects planned.

Of course, we’ve also got existing UK licensees with Tie Studio, and we have musical boxes from Protocol. I don’t know if you’ve seen that we’ve got Laurel and Hardy’s souvenir banknotes as well… Another thing that’s been quite significant over the past year is an association with amazon because, as I say, amazon show the movies. In fact, through the Pogo Group, we managed to get designation as amazon-supplied merchandise. That helps address some of the problems one gets with IP infringement which we do try and tidy up.

Are there any other things you think would be great for Laurel and Hardy partnerships?
Well, I think we’ll be doing more gifts and memorabilia items, as you might expect. We’d love to do an interactive game, though. We’re in discussions on that – we haven’t concluded anything. And I sometimes think about electronic accessories… Everyone’s got a mobile of course, so mobile accessories and things like that would be great. We had a couple of approaches at BLE. It would make sense to tie that very rich scene in with new licenses for the 100th.

Wow! So lots going on around this… What other brands does Licensing Management International represent?
We’ve represented British Motor Heritage since 2000, which is a lot of the truly classic cars: Austin-Healey, Austin Taxi, Morris, MG and so on. We had an anniversary of the MG last year, actually. For that, we had a special beer and all the rest of it. So anniversaries do, I think, concentrate people’s minds to be supportive of heritage brands and there’s a great willingness to go back to British heritage projects… And British Motor Heritage has been very good; the company that controls the rights – they came to us over 25 years ago… So now, of course, we have agreements with Electronic Arts, Microsoft, and with Mattel for the die-cast cars and things like that.

Oh! Of course! Hot Wheels, presumably?
Right… And that’s a blossoming business. I mean: generally speaking, if it’s on wheels, it makes money. But some of this is a bit more about British memorabilia, I think; classic British brands. For instance, BSA – we took that on six years ago, and we’ve been licensing their classic brands ever since. They’ve got three new models out this year so I’m going up to the Motorcycle Live show at the NEC next month…

People do a fantastic job on merchandise there: gift items, t-shirts, bags and so on. Then, with bikes and cars, you’ve usually got die-cast, computer games, gifts, apparel… And we do that globally; we have about 20 affiliates around the world. We tend to take on a brand and then represent it in many instances on a global basis.

And am I right in saying that another British brand of yours is Highclere Castle – the real Downton Abbey?
Ah! We were at Highclere Castle yesterday as it happens, yes. Lord and Lady Carnarvon took us round the castle with a potential licensing partner… This manufacturer – I won’t say who just yet – sent three people down to visit; we did a little tour, went to the secret garden and all the rest of it. You can imagine how we have a very good response to things like that in China and America. Licensing wise, we’ve got a company called Standard Fiber that does sheets and pillowcases. Another company, AW Industries, does mattresses using wool from the sheep in the grounds of Highclere Castle.

That’s extraordinary! Tell me, Andrew, how did you come to be running Licensing Management International?
Way back when, I was working for West Nally, doing the licensing for FIFA World Cup… I wasn’t working for myself, but as an employee. I got introduced to a guy called Charlie Weber, who was the president of a company called Lucasfilm.

Lucasfilm?
Lucasfilm! And they said, “Look, we’ve made this movie called Star Wars, but we want to try and expand. We’re going to make nine movies, so we’ve got eight more coming out. And we’ve got some toys, but nobody will buy a license… So I went to my boss and said I needed to go to New York for the Hobie Cat Championships. Then I set up a meeting with Charlie while I was there.

Just as an aside!
Ha! So that’s what happened… I went to New York, met with Charlie Weber, and became an agent for Lucasfilm. We did that for seven years, just the first three movies. Then, as you may know, George Lucas stopped making Star Wars movies for 20 years… But in the meanwhile, the NFL came to me and asked me to work with them.

There are some pedigree names here, Andrew…
Well, this is very much our formula, if it can be called that… One thing leads to another. We do the deals here in the UK, then we go to France, say… Then we’re able to say, “We’ve done this, look…” In fact, we did Game of Thrones, by way of example, for nine years. The French didn’t really take to it as there was “too much blood”! But we eventually found a French licensee that said, felt that they could make it work. So we started the European rights like that.

Anyway, that’s how LMI came about, through Star Wars and NFL… They were quite good places to start. Then we diversified into doing the Davis Cup for the International Tennis Federation, and over the years through our affiliation with Bradford Licensing, Game of Thrones, Pepsi, Hard Rock International, Hard Rock Cafe – that’s a very interesting brand; it’s nearly 55 years old… They’re on a big expansion; it’s owned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida! They acquired the rights from Peter Morton and Isaac Tigrett a good number of years ago.

Fantastic! The only thing I don’t think I caught was how you got into licensing in the first place…
Oh, I met a man called Mark McCormack at Wentworth Golf Club. Mark McCormack was a great businessman… He founded IMG; International Management Group. At that time, he had three very high-profile golf clients, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus and Gary Player… The big three, as they used to call them! I was working for an advertising agency called J. Walter Thompson at that time. One of my clients was Alcan. Alcan golf days used to have the big three for a special golf day back then. Anyway, about six months after Mark and I got chatting, I got an invitation to meet him for breakfast at the Savoy at something like 6:30 in the morning because – do you know this story?!

No, I’m hanging on your every word! You were meeting him for breakfast…
Meeting him for breakfast at some unholy hour of the morning… Because the way Mark McCormack worked was that the lowest of the low had the first slot in the day and the really important people had the last slot!

Ha! Is that right? Oh, my! Do you do that? Is that why you wanted to do this first thing?! Ha!
Ha! No, no, no! But anyway, the longer and shorter of it is that Mark offered me a job. So it was me and Sarah Waldridge in Brompton Square in London with Martin Sorrell now Sir Martin. Sarah, still does some publishing. I think she still does a book – which is sponsored by Rolex – called The World of Professional Golf. Our first deal was for Arnold Palmer socks with a company called Meridian. After that, I just stayed in licensing… And it’s true what they say, you know: Your first deal’s the toughest deal!

Soon after we got the Arnold Palmer sock deal, we did the Arnold Palmer clothing deal with a company based in Hong Kong and away we went. And then the Empire grew… The next chap we had was Rod Laver, a tennis player. I used to go and watch him with my mum at London’s Royal Albert Hall… He was left-handed and his left arm was double the size of his right arm! Lovely man; still with us. We also had the racing driver Jackie Stewart who’s still a friend to this day. A lot of motor racing chaps… And now, of course, IMG is probably one of the biggest licensing and management companies in the world.

Amazing story! What a career…. And what a way to find a career! Pop to the golf course, and away you go!
Well, absolutely! And I do often say: your personal contacts are as valuable as your business contacts. You just never know what and who people know, do you?

Indeed, you do not! Well, thank you for this, Andrew. I appreciate you making the time – all the more so since I know since I now know there must be a queue of more important people after me!