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Ted Healy and his Stooges The Three Stooges started in 1925 as part of a raucous vaudeville act called "Ted Healy and His Stooges" (also known as "Ted Healy and His Southern Gentlemen", "Ted Healy and His Three Lost Souls", and "Ted Healy and His Racketeers"). The moniker "Three Stooges" was never used during their tenure with Healy. Moe (Moses Harry Horwitz) joined Healy's act in 1921, and his brother Shemp came aboard in 1923.[1] In 1925 violinist-comedian Larry Fine and Fred Sanborn, also joined the group.[2] In the act, lead comedian Healy would attempt to sing or tell jokes while his noisy assistants would keep "interrupting" him, causing Healy to retaliate with verbal and physical abuse. The original Three Stooges in their film debut, Soup to Nuts. Shemp Howard (far left) was the original third Stooge before his youngest brother Curly Howard assumed the role. In 1930, Ted Healy and His Stooges (including Sanborn) appeared in their first Hollywood feature film, Soup to Nuts, released by Fox Film Corporation. The film was not a critical success, but the Stooges' performances were singled out as memorable, leading Fox to offer the trio a contract minus Healy.[2] This enraged Healy, who told studio executives that the Stooges were his employees. The offer was withdrawn, and after Howard, Fine and Howard learned of the reason, they left Healy to form their own act, which quickly took off with a tour of the theater circuit.[2] Healy attempted to stop the new act with legal action, claiming they were using his copyrighted material. There are accounts of Healy threatening to bomb theaters if Howard, Fine and Howard ever performed there, which worried Shemp so much that he almost left the act; reportedly, only a pay raise kept him on board.[3] Healy tried to save his act by hiring replacement stooges, but they were inexperienced and not as well-received as their predecessors.[3] In 1932, with Moe now acting as business manager, Healy reached a new agreement with his former Stooges, and they were booked in a production of Jacob J. Shubert's The Passing Show of 1932.[2] During rehearsals, Healy received a more lucrative offer and found a loophole in his contract allowing him to leave the production.[3] Shemp, fed up with Healy's abrasiveness,[3] decided to quit the act and found work almost immediately, in Vitaphone movie comedies produced in Brooklyn, New York.[2] With Shemp gone, Healy and the two remaining stooges (Moe and Larry) needed a replacement, so Moe suggested his younger brother Jerry Howard. Healy reportedly took one look at Jerry, who had long chestnut red locks and a handlebar mustache, and remarked that he did not look like he was funny.[3] Jerry left the room and returned a few moments later with his head shaved (though his mustache remained for a time), and then quipped "Boy, do I look girly." Healy heard "Curly", and the name stuck.[2] (There are varying accounts as to how the Curly character actually came about.[2]) In 1933, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) signed Healy and his Stooges to a movie contract. They appeared in feature films and short subjects, either together, individually, or with various combinations of actors. The trio was featured in a series of musical comedy shorts, beginning with Nertsery Rhymes. The short was one of a few shorts to be made with an early two-strip Technicolor process, including one featuring Curly without Healy or the other Stooges, Roast Beef and Movies (1934). The shorts themselves were built around recycled film footage of production numbers cut from MGM musicals, such as Children of Pleasure, Lord Byron of Broadway, and the unfinished March of Time (all 1930), which had been filmed in early Technicolor. Soon, additional shorts followed (sans the experimental Technicolor), including Beer and Pretzels (1933), Plane Nuts (1933), Jail Birds of Paradise (1934) and The Big Idea (1934).[2] Healy and company also appeared in several MGM feature films as comic relief, such as Turn Back the Clock (1933), Meet the Baron (1933), Dancing Lady (1933), Fugitive Lovers (1934), and Hollywood Party (1934). Healy and the Stooges also appeared together in Myrt and Marge for Universal Pictures.[2] In 1934, the team's contract with MGM expired, and the Stooges parted professional company with Healy. According to Moe Howard's autobiography,[4] the Stooges split with Ted Healy in 1934 once and for all because of Healy's alcoholism and abrasiveness. Their final film with Healy was MGM's 1934 film, Hollywood Party. Both Healy and the Stooges went on to separate successes, with Healy dying under mysterious circumstances in 1937.[2] The Columbia years Moe, Larry and Curly Curly, Larry and Moe In 1934, the trio – now officially named "The Three Stooges" – signed on to appear in two-reel comedy short subjects for Columbia Pictures. In Moe's autobiography, he said they each got $600 per week on a one-year contract with a renewable option;[4] in the Ted Okuda–Edward Watz book The Columbia Comedy Shorts, the Stooges are said to have received $1,000 among them for their first Columbia effort, Woman Haters, and then signed a term contract for $7,500 per film (equal to $132,220 today), to be divided among the trio.[5] Within their first year at Columbia, the Stooges became wildly popular. Realizing this, Columbia Pictures president Harry Cohn used the Stooges as leverage, as the demand for their films was so great that he eventually refused to supply exhibitors with the trio's shorts unless they also agreed to book some of the studio's mediocre B movies.[5] Cohn also saw to it that the Stooges remained ignorant of their popularity.[5] During their 23 years at Columbia, the Stooges were never completely aware of their amazing drawing power at the box office.[5] As their contracts with the studio included an open option that had to be renewed yearly, Cohn would tell the boys that the short subjects were in decline, which was not a complete fabrication (Cohn's yearly mantra was "the market for comedy shorts is dying out, fellas"). Thinking their days were numbered, the Stooges would cruelly sweat it out each and every year, with Cohn renewing their contract at the eleventh hour. This deception kept the insecure Stooges unaware of their true value, resulting in them having second thoughts about asking for a better contract without a yearly option. Cohn's scare tactics worked for all 23 years the Stooges were at Columbia; the team never once asked for – nor were they ever given – a salary increase.[5] It was not until after they stopped making the shorts in December 1957 did Moe learn of Cohn's underhanded tactics, what a valuable commodity the Stooges had been for the ailing studio, and how many millions more the act could have earned.[5] While Columbia offered theater owners an entire program of two-reel comedies (15 to 25 titles annually) featuring such stars as Buster Keaton, Andy Clyde, Charley Chase, and Hugh Herbert, the Stooge shorts were the most popular of all.[3] Larry, Moe and Curly in Disorder in the Court (1936) The Stooges were required to release up to eight short films per year within a 40-week period; for the remaining 12 or so weeks, they were free to pursue other employment, time which was either spent with their families or touring the country to promote their live act.[6] The Stooges appeared in 190 film shorts and five features while at Columbia, outlasting every one of their contemporaries employed in the short film genre. Del Lord directed more than three dozen Stooge films; Jules White directed dozens more, and his brother Jack White directed several under the pseudonym "Preston Black". Silent film star Charley Chase also shared directorial responsibilities with Lord and White.[5] The Stooge films made between 1935–1941 captured the team at the peak, according to film historians Ted Okuda and Edward Watz, authors of The Columbia Comedy Shorts. Nearly every film produced became a classic in its own right. 1935's Hoi Polloi adapted the premise of Pygmalion, with a stuffy professor waging a bet that he can transform the uncultured trio into refined gentlemen; the plotline worked so well that it was reused twice, as Half-Wits Holiday and Pies and Guys. Three Little Beers featured the team employed at a brewery who then run amuck on a local golf course to win prize money. 1936's Disorder in the Court features the team as star witnesses in a murder trial. 1938's Violent is the Word for Curly was a quality Chase-directed short that featured the musical interlude, "Swingin' the Alphabet". In the 1940 film A Plumbing We Will Go – one of the team's quintessential comedies – the Stooges are cast as plumbers who nearly destroy a socialite's mansion, causing water to exit every appliance in the home.[5] Other entries of the era, like Uncivil Warriors, A Pain in the Pullman, False Alarms, Grips, Grunts and Groans, The Sitter Downers, Dizzy Doctors, Tassels in the Air, We Want Our Mummy, Nutty but Nice, An Ache in Every Stake and In the Sweet Pie and Pie are considered among the team's finest work.[5] The Stooges during their prime years with Curly Howard on board, as seen in Wee Wee Monsieur With the onset of World War II, the Stooges released several entries that poked fun at the rising Axis powers. You Nazty Spy! and its sequel I'll Never Heil Again burlesqued Hitler and the Nazis at a time when America was still neutral and resolutely isolationist. Moe is cast as "Moe Hailstone", an Adolf Hitler-like character, with Curly playing a Hermann Göring character (replete with medals), and Larry a Ribbentrop-type ambassador. Though revered by Stooge fans, as well as the Stooges themselves (Moe, Larry and director Jules White considered You Nazty Spy! their best film),[7] the efforts indulged in a deliberately formless, non-sequitur style of verbal humor that was not the Stooges' forte, according to Okuda and Watz. Other wartime entries, like They Stooge to Conga, Higher Than a Kite, Back From the Front, Gents Without Cents and the controversial The Yoke's on Me have their moments, but taken in bulk, the wartime films are decidedly substandard.[5] No Dough Boys ranks as the best of these farces. The team, made up as Japanese soldiers for a photo shoot, is mistaken for genuine saboteurs by a Nazi ringleader (Vernon Dent). The highlight of the film features the Stooges engaging in nonsensical gymnastics (the real spies are renowned acrobats) for a skeptical group of enemy agents.[5] The World War II era also brought on rising production costs that resulted in a reduced number of elaborate gags and outdoor sequences, Del Lord's stock and trade; as such, the quality of the teams' films (particularly those directed by Lord) began to slip after 1942. According to Okuda and Watz, entries like Loco Boy Makes Good, What's the Matador?, Sock-A-Bye Baby, I Can Hardly Wait and A Gem of a Jam are considered to be less quality work than previous efforts, and in a different class than their earlier films.[5] The 1943 film Spook Louder, a remake of Mack Sennett's The Great Pie Mystery, is often cited as their worst film. The story of a phantom pie-thrower (later revealed to be the detective on the case) is repetitious and relying on the same jokes, which many Stooge fans consider to be far less humorous than their past work.[5] Three Smart Saps, a film considered to be an improvement, features a reworking of a routine from Harold Lloyd's The Freshman, in which Curly's loosely basted suit begins to come apart at the seams while he is on the dance floor.[5] Curly Howard The Stooges made occasional guest appearances in feature films, though generally they were restricted to their short subjects. Even though most of the Stooges' peers had either made the transition from shorts to features films (Laurel and Hardy, The Ritz Brothers) or had been starring their own feature films from the onset (The Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello), Moe believed the team's firebrand style of humor worked better in short form. In 1935, when Columbia proposed to star them in their own full-length feature, Moe rejected the idea, saying "It's a hard job inventing, rewriting or stealing gags for our two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures without having to make a seven-reeler (feature film). We can make short films out of material needed for a starring feature and then we wouldn't know whether it would be funny enough to click."[8] Film critics and stooge fans alike have cited Curly as the most popular member of the team.[3] His childlike mannerisms and natural comedic charm (he had no previous acting experience) made him a hit with audiences, particularly children and women (the latter usually finding the trio's humor juvenile and uncouth). The fact that Curly had to shave his head for the act led him to feel unappealing to women. To mask his insecurities, he ate and drank to excess and caroused whenever the Stooges made personal appearances, which was approximately seven months out of the year. His weight ballooned in the 1940s, and his blood pressure became dangerously high.[2] His wild lifestyle and constant drinking eventually caught up with him in 1945, and his performances suffered. In his last dozen shorts (ranging from 1945's If a Body Meets a Body through 1947's Half-Wits Holiday) he was seriously ill, struggling to get through even the most basic scenes.[3] During the final day of filming Half-Wits Holiday on May 6, 1946, he suffered a debilitating stroke on the set, ending his 14-year career and temporarily forcing the Stooges into retirement. While they hoped for a full recovery, Curly never appeared in a film again except for a single cameo appearance in the third film after Shemp returned to the trio, Hold That Lion! It was the only film that contained all four of the original Stooges (the three Howard brothers and Larry) on screen simultaneously. According to Jules White, this anomaly came about when Curly visited the set one day, and White had him do this bit for fun. (Curly's cameo appearance was recycled in the 1953 remake Booty and the Beast.)[4] In 1948, Curly was supposed to play a cameo role in Malice in the Palace, but beyond posing in costume for a lobby card photo, there is no evidence of his contribution; it appears he was healthy enough to do the short scene. His Chef role was not to be so the scene carried through with Larry as Chef and Waiter.[2] The movie itself came out about one year later. Shemp's return Moe then asked his older brother Shemp to take Curly's place but Shemp was hesitant to rejoin the Stooges, as he was enjoying a successful solo career at the time of Curly's stroke. He realized, however, that not reviving the Stooges would mean the end of Moe's and Larry's film careers. Shemp wanted some kind of assurance that rejoining them would be only temporary, and that he could leave the Stooges once Curly recovered. But Curly remained gravely ill until his death of a cerebral hemorrhage from additional strokes on January 18, 1952.[2] Shemp appeared with the Stooges in 76 shorts and a low-budget Western comedy feature titled Gold Raiders in which the screen time was evenly divided with Murnau's former Sunrise leading man turned B-picture cowboy hero George O'Brien. Shemp's return improved the quality of the films, as the last few with Curly had been marred by his sluggish performances. Entries like Out West, Squareheads of the Round Table, and Punchy Cowpunchers proved that there was life after Curly, and that Shemp could easily hold his own. This was due in part to the presence of new director Edward Bernds, who joined the team in 1945 when Curly was failing. Bernds sensed that routines and plotlines that worked well with Curly as the comic focus did not fit Shemp's persona, and decidedly allowed the comedian to develop his own Stooge characterization. Jules White, however, persisted in employing the "living cartoon" style of comedy that reigned during the Curly era. White would force either Shemp or Moe to perform similar gags and mannerisms originated by Curly, resulting in what appeared to be lackluster imitation.[9] Most acutely, it created the "Curly vs. Shemp" debate that overshadowed the act upon the former's departure[10][11][12]). Though the Stooges lost some of their charm and inherent appeal to children after Curly retired, some of the finest films were produced with Shemp, a gifted, professional and naturally funny comedian who often performed best when allowed to improvise on his own.[9] More often than not, his astute gift of comedic timing buoys weak material.[5] Unlike the Curly era, the films from the Shemp era contrast sharply, due to the individual directing styles of Bernds and White. The incongruous, noisy cartoonish nonesense of White's films were no match for the structured plotlines and contextual gags that laced the Bernds efforts.[9] From 1947 to 1952, Bernds hit a string of successes, including Fright Night, The Hot Scots, Mummy's Dummies, Crime on Their Hands, A Snitch in Time, Three Arabian Nuts and Gents in a Jam. Two of the teams finest efforts, Brideless Groom and Who Done It?, were directed by Bernds. White also contributed a few par entries, such as Hold That Lion!, Hokus Pokus, Scrambled Brains, A Missed Fortune and Corny Casanovas. Another interesting plus from the Shemp era was that Larry was given more time on screen. Throughout most of the Curly era, Larry was relegated to a background role, only being called upon to break up a potential scuffle between Moe and Curly. By the time Shemp rejoined the Stooges, Larry was allotted equal footage, even becoming the focus of several films (Fuelin' Around, He Cooked His Goose).[5] The Shemp years also marked a major milestone: the Stooges' first appearance on television. In 1948, they guest starred on Milton Berle's popular Texaco Star Theater and Morey Amsterdam's The Morey Amsterdam Show. By 1949, the team filmed a pilot for ABC-TV for their own weekly television series, titled Jerks of All Trades. Though it never sold, their slapstick humor was in great demand on television programs looking to fill air space. The team went on to appear on Camel Comedy Caravan (also known as The Ed Wynn Show), The Kate Smith Hour, The Colgate Comedy Hour, The Frank Sinatra Show and The Eddie Cantor Comedy Theatre, among others.[8] The Three Stooges during the Shemp years (1947–1956), as represented in Malice in the Palace In 1952, however, the Stooges lost some key players at Columbia. The studio decided to downsize its short subject division, resulting in producer Hugh McCollum being discharged and director Edward Bernds resigning out of loyalty to McCollum. Bernds had been contemplating his resignation for some time, as he and Jules White were often at odds. Screenwriter Elwood Ullman followed suit, leaving only White to both produce and direct the Stooges' remaining Columbia comedies.[8] Almost overnight, the quality of the Stooge shorts declined with White now assuming complete control over Stooge films. Production was significantly faster, with the former four-day filming schedules now tightened to two or three days. In another cost-cutting measure, White would create a "new" Stooge short by borrowing footage from old ones, setting it in a slightly different storyline, and filming a few new scenes often with the same actors in the same costumes. White was initially very subtle when recycling older footage: he would reuse only a single sequence of old film, re-edited so cleverly that it was not easy to detect. The later shorts were cheaper and the recycling more obvious, with as much as 75% of the running time consisting of old footage. White came to rely so much on older material that he could film the "new" shorts in a single day. Plus, any new footage filmed in order to link older material suffered from White's wooden directing and his penchant for telling his actors how to act. Shemp in particular disliked working with White.[5] Three years after Curly's death, Shemp died of a sudden heart attack at age 60 on November 22, 1955 during a taxi ride with a friend (who thought he was just playing dead at first). Recycled footage of Shemp, combined with new footage utilizing Columbia supporting player Joe Palma as Shemp's double (only filmed from the back), were used to complete the last four films originally planned with Shemp: Rumpus in the Harem, Hot Stuff, Scheming Schemers, and Commotion on the Ocean.[2] Main article: Fake Shemp Joe Besser takes Shemp's place Joe Besser replaced Shemp in 1956, appearing in 16 Stooges shorts. Besser had earlier starred in his own short-subject comedies for Columbia from 1949 to 1956 and appeared in supporting roles in a variety of movies, making his persona sufficiently well known that he was frequently caricatured in Looney Tunes animated shorts of the era before joining the Stooges. Besser, noting how one side of Larry Fine's face appeared "calloused",[13] had a clause in his contract specifically prohibiting him from being smacked beyond an infrequent tap (though this restriction was later lifted). Besser was the only "third" Stooge that dared to hit Moe back in retaliation and get away with it; Larry Fine was also known to hit Moe on occasion, but always with serious repercussions. "I usually played the kind of character who would hit others back", Besser recalled.[9] Larry and Joe Besser, as "The Original Two-Man Quartet", serenade Moe in the 1957 short Guns a Poppin Despite Besser's prolific film and stage career, his Stooge entries have been sometimes tagged as the trio's weak link.[5] During his time with the act, the team's shorts were being assailed for being questionable models for youth, and in response began to resemble family-based TV sitcoms which were now ho-hum, routine fare.[8] Sitcoms, now available for free on the new and popular medium of television, made shorts a throwback to a bygone era. Though Besser was a very funny comic (he was very popular, especially as spoiled-brat "Stinky", on The Abbott and Costello Show and Joey Bishop Show), his whining mannerisms ("Not so ha-r-r-d!", "You're m-e-a-n!") did not quite jell with the eye-gouging, hand-biting, belly-punching Stooge antics of the past,[5] though it did create the verbal friction between Moe and Larry that succeeded in making put-down banter.[8] Times had changed, and Besser was not solely to blame for the lackluster quality of these final entries: the scripts were tired rehashes of earlier efforts (seven of the 16 films were remakes), the budgets were much lower than they had been, and Moe's and Larry's performances were deemed anemic. They were growing older, and could no longer perform pratfalls and physical comedy as they once had.[5] Since the team members were getting on in years, Besser suggested that Moe and Larry comb their hair back and discard their trademark hairstyles to give them a more gentlemanly appearance. Surprisingly, Moe and Jules White approved of the idea, but used it sparingly in order to match the old footage in films that were remakes.[8] Despite their longstanding reputation, the final Stooge shorts did have their moments. In general, the remakes had the traditional Stooges knockabout look and feel, like Pies and Guys (a scene-for-scene remake of both Hoi Polloi and Half-Wits Holiday), Guns a Poppin, Rusty Romeos and Triple Crossed.[8] In contrast, Hoofs and Goofs, Horsing Around and Muscle Up a Little Closer and most resembled the sitcoms of the era. A Merry Mix Up and Oil's Well That Ends Well are also amusing, while the musical Sweet and Hot (long detested by fans) deserves some credit for straying from the norm. The space craze also took hold of the American public at the time, resulting in three entries focusing on space travel: Space Ship Sappy, Outer Space Jitters and Flying Saucer Daffy.[5] The inevitable occurred soon enough. Columbia was the last studio still producing shorts, and the market for such films had all but dried up. As a result, the studio opted not to renew the Stooges' contract when it expired in late December 1957. The final comedy produced was Flying Saucer Daffy, filmed on December 19–20, 1957.[6] Several days later, the Stooges were unceremoniously fired from Columbia Pictures after 24 years of making low-budget shorts. Joan Howard Maurer, Moe's daughter, wrote the following in 1982: The boys' careers had suddenly come to an end. They were at Columbia one day and gone the next – no "Thank yous," no farewell party for their 24 years of dedication and service and the dollars their comedies had reaped for the studio. Moe recalled that a few weeks after their exit from Columbia, when he drove to the studio to say goodbye to several studio executives, he was stopped by a guard at the gate (obviously not a Stooges fan) and since he didn't have the current year's studio pass was refused entry. It felt like a crushing blow to him, however temporary.[2] Although the Stooges were no longer working for Columbia, the studio had enough completed films on the shelf to keep releasing new comedies for another 18 months, though not in the order in which they were produced. The final Stooge release, Sappy Bull Fighters, did not reach theaters until June 4, 1959. With no active contract in place, Moe and Larry discussed plans for a personal appearance tour. In the meantime, Besser's wife suffered a minor heart attack and he preferred to stay local, leading him to withdraw from the act. For the first time in nearly 30 years, the Stooges were at a dead end.[2] The comeback: Moe, Larry and Curly Joe Seeing the success of how television, in its early years, allowed movie studios to unload a backlog of short films thought unmarketable, the Stooge films seemed perfect for the burgeoning genre. ABC had even expressed interest as far back as 1949, purchasing exclusive rights to 30 of the trio's shorts.[14] However, the success of television revivals for such names as Laurel and Hardy, Woody Woodpecker, Tom and Jerry and the Our Gang series in the late 1950s led Columbia to cash in again on the Stooges. In January 1958, Columbia's television subsidiary Screen Gems offered a package consisting of 78 Stooge shorts (mainly from the Curly era), which were well received.[15] Almost immediately, an additional 40 shorts hit the market, and by 1959, all 190 Stooge shorts were airing regularly. Due to the massive quantity of Stooge product available for broadcast, the films were broadcast Monday through Friday, leading to heavy exposure aimed squarely at children. This led parents to watch alongside of their offspring, and before long, Howard and Fine found themselves in high demand.[5] Moe quickly signed movie and burlesque comic Joe DeRita, who had starred in four of his own slapstick comedy Columbia shorts a decade earlier: Slappily Married (1946), The Good Bad Egg (1947), Wedlock Deadlock (1947), and Jitter Bughouse (1948), for the "third Stooge" role. DeRita, whose hairstyle while working solo had vaguely resembled Shemp's, adopted first a crew cut and then a completely shaven hairstyle to accentuate his slight resemblance to Curly Howard and became "Curly Joe" (also to make it easier to distinguish him from Joe Besser, the earlier Stooge called Joe). The Three Stooges with Curly Joe DeRita filling the role of the third stooge. From the 1961 feature film Snow White and the Three Stooges. This Three Stooges lineup went on to make six popular full-length Stooges movies from 1959 to 1965: Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959), Snow White and the Three Stooges (1961), The Three Stooges Meet Hercules (1962), The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962), The Three Stooges Go Around the World in a Daze (1963), and The Outlaws Is Coming (1965). The films were aimed at the kiddie-matinee market, and most were black and white farce outings in the Stooge tradition, with the exception of Snow White and the Three Stooges, a children's fantasy in Technicolor. They also appeared in an extremely brief cameo as firemen (the role that helped make an earlier Stooges lineup famous in Soup to Nuts) in the film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World in 1963, and in a larger capacity that same year in 4 for Texas starring Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. Throughout the 1960s, The Three Stooges were one of the most popular and highest-paid live acts in America.[9] The Stooges also tried their hand at another weekly television series in 1960 titled The Three Stooges Scrapbook. Filmed in color and with a laugh track, the first episode, "Home Cooking", featured the boys rehearsing for a new television show. Like Jerks of All Trades, the pilot did not sell. However, Norman Maurer was able to reuse the footage (reprocessed in black and white) for the first 20 minutes of the feature film The Three Stooges in Orbit.[2] The trio also filmed 41 short comedy skits for The New Three Stooges, which features a series of 156 animated cartoons produced for television. The Stooges appeared in live-action color footage, which preceded and followed each animated adventure in which they voiced their respective characters.[2] Last years In 1969, the Stooges filmed a pilot episode for a new TV series entitled Kook's Tour, a combination travelogue-sitcom that had the "retired" Stooges traveling around the world, with the episodes filmed on location.[2] On January 9, 1970, during production of the pilot, Larry suffered a paralyzing stroke, ending his acting career along with plans for the television series.[2] A proposed incarnation of the Three Stooges. A promotional picture taken after Larry's death in 1975 features a very ill Moe Howard (who died shortly thereafter) flanked by Curly Joe DeRita to the left and Emil Sitka ("Harry") to the right. Plans were in the works for long-time foil Emil Sitka to replace Larry as the "middle Stooge" in 1971, but nothing ever came of that idea other than the proposed publicity still reproduced here.[2] Three years later, in mid-December 1974, Larry suffered yet another stroke at the age of 72 and four weeks later an even more massive one. Slipping into a coma, he died a week later of a stroke-induced cerebral hemorrhage on January 24, 1975.[2] Devastated by his friend's death, Moe nevertheless decided that the Three Stooges should continue. Several movie ideas were considered, one of which, according to critic and movie historian Leonard Maltin (who also uncovered a pre-production photo), was entitled Blazing Stewardesses. Before pre-production could begin, Moe fell ill from lung cancer, and died three months later on May 4, 1975.[4] However, Blazing Stewardesses was eventually made, starring the last of the surviving Ritz Brothers comedy troupe and released to moderate acclaim later that year.[2] Joe DeRita continued to perform live into the mid-1970s with Mousie Garner and Frank Mitchell as "The New Three Stooges", enjoying recognition well into old age, before retiring by 1979. Of the remaining "original-replacement" Stooges, Joe Besser died of heart failure on March 1, 1988, followed by Joe DeRita of pneumonia on July 3, 1993. Emil Sitka, who was announced as a Stooge but never performed as such, died on January 16, 1998. Legacy and perspective Over half a century since their last short film was released, the Three Stooges remain wildly popular with audiences. Their films have never left the television airwaves since first appearing in 1958, and they continue to delight old fans while attracting new legions of fervent admirers. A hard-working group of working-class comedians who were never the critics' darlings, the durable act endured several personnel changes in their careers which would have permanently sidelined a less-persistent act.[5] The Stooges would not have lasted as long as they did as a unit without Moe Howard's guiding hand.[2] The Ted Okuda/Edward Watz-penned book The Columbia Comedy Shorts puts the Stooges' legacy in critical perspective: Many scholarly studies of motion picture comedy have overlooked the Three Stooges entirely – and not without valid reasoning. Aesthetically, the Stooges violated every rule that constitutes "good" comedic style. Their characters lacked the emotional depth of Charlie Chaplin and Harry Langdon; they were never as witty or subtle as Buster Keaton. They were not disciplined enough to sustain lengthy comic sequences; far too often, they were willing to suspend what little narrative structure their pictures possessed in order to insert a number of gratuitous jokes. Nearly every premise they have employed (spoofs of westerns, horror films, costume melodramas) has been done to better effect by other comedians. And yet, in spite of the overwhelming artistic odds against them, they were responsible for some of the finest comedies ever made. Their humor was the most undistilled form of low comedy; they were not great innovators, but as quick laugh practitioners, they place second to none. If public taste is any criterion, the Stooges have been the reigning kings of comedy for over fifty years.[5] Beginning in the 1980s, the Stooges finally began to receive critical recognition. The release of nearly all their films on DVD by 2010 has allowed critics of Joe Besser and Joe DeRita – often the recipients of significant fan backlash – to appreciate the unique style of comedy both men brought to the Stooges. In addition, the DVD market in particular has allowed fans to view the entire Stooge film corpus as distinct periods in their long, distinguished career instead of comparing one Stooge to the other (the Curly vs. Shemp debate continues to this day[10][11][12]). The team appeared in 220 films. In the end, it is the durability of the 190 timeless short films the Stooges made at Columbia Pictures that acts as an enduring tribute to the comedy team. Their continued popularity worldwide has proven to even the most skeptical critics that their films are funny.[5] American television personality Steve Allen went on record in the mid-1980s saying "though they never achieved widespread critical acclaim, they achieved exactly what they had always intended to do: they made people laugh."[16] Lineups on film Years Moe Shemp Larry Curly Joe Curly Joe 1930–1932 (2) Green tick Green tick Green tick 1932–1946 (14) Green tick Green tick Green tick 1946–1955 (9) Green tick Green tick Green tick 1956–1957 (1) Green tick Green tick Green tick 1958–1969 (11) Green tick Green tick Green tick Moe Howard Real Name: Moses Harry Horwitz Born: June 19, 1897 Died: May 4, 1975 (aged 77) Cause of death: Lung cancer Stooge years: 1921–1969 Shemp Howard Real Name: Samuel Horwitz Born: March 11, 1895 Died: November 22, 1955 (aged 60) Cause of death: Heart attack Stooge years: 1923–1932, 1946–1955 Larry Fine Real Name: Louis Feinberg Born: October 5, 1902 Died: January 24, 1975 (aged 72) Cause of death: Stroke Stooge years: 1925–1969 Curly Howard Real Name: Jerome Lester Horwitz Born: October 22, 1903 Died: January 18, 1952 (aged 48) Cause of death: Cerebral hemorrhage Stooge years: 1932–1946 Joe Besser Born: August 12, 1907 Died: March 1, 1988 (aged 80) Cause of death: Heart failure Stooge years: 1956–1957 Joe DeRita ("Curly Joe") Real Name: Joseph Wardell Born: July 12, 1909 Died: July 3, 1993 (aged 83) Cause of death: Pneumonia Stooge years: 1958–1969 The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the mid–20th century (1930–1975) best known for their numerous short subject films, still syndicated to television. Their hallmark was physical farce and slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" or "Moe, Larry, and Shemp", among other lineups depending on the films; there were six or seven stooges. Moe and Larry were always present until the very last years of the ensemble's forty-plus-year run. The act began as part of a late-twenties vaudeville comedy act, Ted Healy and his Stooges, consisting of Healy, Moe Howard, his brother Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine. The four made one feature film entitled Soup to Nuts before Shemp left to pursue a solo career. He was replaced by his younger brother Jerome (Curly Howard), and the trio eventually left Healy to launch their own act, billed as The Three Stooges. Curly suffered a debilitating stroke in May 1946, and Shemp returned, reinstating the original lineup until Shemp's death in November, 1955. Film actor Joe Palma was used as a temporary stand-in; the maneuver thereafter became known as the term of art Fake Shemp—to complete four Shemp-era shorts under contract. The coining of the term took place before a new contract from Columbia but after comic Joe Besser joined as the third Stooge in a run '56–57—but he left in 1958 to nurse his ailing spouse. Columbia terminated its shorts division and released its Stooges contractual rights to the Screen Gems production studio. When Screen Gems syndicated the shorts to television, the Stooges became stars. They also made a cameo appearance in the 1963 comedy classic It's a Mad Mad Mad Mad World. Comic actor Joe DeRita became ("Curly Joe") in 1958, replacing Besser. With the television exposure, the act regained momentum throughout the 1960s as popular kiddie fare until Larry Fine's paralyzing stroke in January 1970. Fine died in 1975 after a further series of strokes. Moe tried one final time to revive the Stooges with longtime supporting actor Emil Sitka in Larry's role, the proposed lineup sometimes referred to as The Three Stooges, Mark V, but this attempt was cut short with Moe's death in May 1975. |
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