She Was the Other
1914 film by Arthur Hotaling

She Was the Other is a 1914 American split-reel silent comedy film produced by the Lubin Manufacturing Company and starring Ed Lawrence, Oliver Hardy, and Mabel Paige.
Plot
The chief of police is tired of the sloppy appearance of his officers. A nearby police department has solved this problem by appointing a female inspector, so the chief decides to do the same, and he tells the men that his sister will be joining the department and inspecting them on Monday. The men are familiar with his fat sister Cutie and have no desire to look their best for her, so they show up to work in an even more disheveled state than usual. The inspector, however, turns out to be the chief's other sister, Helen, who is very attractive. When they see her, the embarrassed men run out of the station and return all spruced up.
Cast
Ed Lawrence - The Chief
Oliver Hardy - Cutie (billed as Babe Hardy)
Mabel Paige - Helen
Production and reception
She Was the Other was written by Epes W. Sargent and produced and directed by Arthur Hotaling, who was the general supervisor of the Jacksonville, Florida unit of the Lubin Manufacturing Company of Philadelphia. It was a short split-reel comedy, lasting approximately five minutes and sharing a single reel of film with Cheap Transportation, an unrelated comedy starring, written and directed by Frank C. Griffin. The films were released by the General Film Company on November 17, 1914, and are among a group of short comedies made by the Lubin company in 1914 and early 1915 that include the earliest screen appearances of Oliver Hardy. Rob Stone points out that this is the first film in which Hardy played the role of a woman (as opposed to a man disguised as a woman).
The public source identifies “She Was the Other” as 1914 film by Arthur Hotaling. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Other, film and Arthur.
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Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Feb 8, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7492094. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1914 and 1915.
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This entry incorporates text from “She Was the Other” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.