Besser's wife was ailing, though, and he didn't want to leave her. Masters of slapstick. But this also was the period when parents and teachers expressed concern over the amount of violence in a Three Stooges comedy. And that's another reason they've endured. That style of comedy is timeless. They were masters of slapstick, but underneath all that, you sense the great affection they had for each other off-screen.
When Larry suffered a stroke in , Moe considered carrying on with longtime Stooge foil Emil Sitka as middle man. Nothing came of those plans. Larry died in early Moe died about three months later. Yet the Stooges live on. They were like overgrown kids. Even their fights were like kids on the playground.
And another reason they survive is that so much of their humor is visual, and that's universal. You don't need to explain it. Still, Maltin realizes that there's a segment of the population that simply doesn't get the simplicity of the Stooges. But they also played on fundamental comedic principles. They were outsiders, underdogs, low men on the totem pole. His famous shuffled walk, however, started long before he longed to perform on a stage.
Moe's only daughter, Joan Maurer, said in the Larry Fine biography 'One Fine Stooge,' his Uncle "Babe" accidentally shot himself in the foot at a young age and refused to get surgery because the procedure scared him. Larry, aka Louis Feinberg, grew up in South Philadelphia to Joseph and Fannie Feinberg and took up his trademark violin at a very young age. It was the result of a very serious accident that severely burned his left arm.
At the age of four, Larry accidentally grabbed a bottle of oxalic acid, a substance used to test the quality of gold, and spilled some of it on his left arm. The acid burned it from the skin to the muscles. He was able to get a skin graft but the muscles were still weak and the doctor recommend Larry take up boxing to regain control of it.
He turned out to be a gifted musician who would go on to play with the Philadelphia Orchestra at age 9 and took his famous fiddle with him into his show business career. The first group, Shemp, Larry and Moe, got their start in film thanks in part to fellow vaudeville star Ted Healy who called the act his "Stooges.
Fine and the Howard boys later teamed up with Healy again for two more films, but Shemp grew tired of being slapped around by Healy and left the act.
Moe brought Curly into the act but tensions rose between Moe and Healy and Moe decided to go in films along with his brother Babe and Larry. He wouldn't give him the name "Stooges" and Moe had to sue him in court for the rights to the name. Neither group lasted very long. The Shemp era was often dismissed in prior years, but time and comedy gems like Brideless Groom , Squareheads of the Round Table , Three Arabian Nuts , Studio Stoops and Goof on the Roof have earned this period the respect it deserves.
Shemp provided the team with a new spark that had been missing with Curly's illness. The first few years with Shemp also remained busy with personal appearances, but that venue dried up quickly as the movie palaces closed one after another in the post-war economy. A Vegas attempt in failed, and the act found itself largely unemployed save for a shortened filming schedule at Columbia due to stock footage remakes Shemp died unexpectedly on November 22, After losing his second brother, Moe seriously considered retiring from the act.
However, a couple years still remained on their contract with Columbia. The group decided to enlist comedy veteran Joe Besser as the third Stooge, and he appeared with the team in 16 shorts until their contract was abruptly terminated in December Passing on Moe's idea to do some personal appearances, Besser left the team a few weeks later to remain home and care for his ill wife.
Joe retired in the early s. Buoyed by the September television release of 78 Three Stooges shorts, the group enjoyed a resurgence in popularity, mostly with kids due to the films appearing on childrens programs. By the end of all shorts were distributed for TV. In Columbia produced a compilation feature entitled Stop!
For 's The Outlaws Is Coming , many of the TV hosts that screened their films were rewarded with roles as the "outlaws. The team formed its own company in , which oversaw an explosion of licensed Three Stooges merchandise with a wide range of toys and games, plus trading cards, coloring books and comic books. The latter half of the s things slowed down considerably with changes in social attitudes, new fads, the boys' kid audience growing up, and the trio's ages.
Yet, the Stooges remained active with various television and personal appearances until Larry's stroke during the filming of Kook's Tour in early January Moe and Larry both died in Ted Healy had a successful film career after he and Stooges split in , appearing in a number of films for MGM as well as being loaned to both Warner Brothers and 20th Century Fox.
Ted didn't leave stooge-ing entirely, putting together a new trio for scenes in San Francisco , which were unfortunately cut in the editing room. But tragically, Ted's life was cut short at the age of 41 in December Ted didn't know he was ill with kidney nephritis and cirhossis of the liver when he went on a celebratory drinking binge after the birth of his son.
After a couple nightclub fights, he returned home the next morning, lapsed into a coma when his kidneys shut down, and Ted died hours later from heart failure. Contrary to legend, his fight injuries of a cut over his eye and a few bruises did not contribute to his death, they were just fuel for tabloid stories. His career was going very well, and years of future entertaining were sadly lost. The popularity of the Three Stooges lives on to this day. MGM chose not to renew the team's contract, which led to Healy and the Stooges ending their partnership.
The Three Stooges would sign a contract with Columbia Pictures. After debuting for Columbia in the musical short Woman Haters as somewhat different characters, the Stooges appeared in their classic iteration in the comedy short Punch Drunks , which features the now-famous plot of Curly playing a boxer who becomes incredibly skilled whenever he hears the song "Pop Goes the Weasel.
It is the only Three Stooges film to be nominated for an Oscar. By , the Stooges' short films had become incredibly popular with audiences and they released eight per year for the rest of the decade. Very quickly the Stooges established their famous personas: Moe as the quick-to-anger leader who frequently attacked his partners with physical abuse, Curly as a childlike dimwit, and Larry as the "middle Stooge.
In , the Three Stooges starred in their first feature film, Rockin' in the Rockies. The classic Three Stooges lineup appeared together for the final time with their ninety-seventh Columbia short, Half-Wits Holiday , which was released in January Sadly, Curly suffered a stroke during the final day of filming of this short and never returned to the team, though he appeared in a cameo in the trio's hundredth Columbia short, Hold That Lion!
Jerry "Curly" Howard died on January 7, , after suffering several more strokes. With Curly unable to perform, Shemp returned to the Three Stooges to replace his brother.
Since he left the Stooges in , Shemp had become a successful supporting actor in comedy films, and starting in he had also starred in his own series of comedy shorts for Columbia. Instead of imitating Curly, Shemp presented his own version of a dimwitted Stooge. However, with the popularity of shorts declining in the early s the Stooges faced significant budget cuts and many of their new releases featured copious footage recycled from earlier shorts for example, six of the Stooges' eight shorts contained recycled footage, as did all eight of their shorts.
On November 22, , Shemp died of a heart attack. Infamously, Moe and Larry completed four Three Stooges shorts left on their yearly contract with Columbia for release by recycling footage of Shemp from earlier shorts and having actor Joe Palma, who frequently appeared in Stooges shorts as a supporting character since 's Goofs and Saddles , stand in for Shemp.
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