Top Stooge

I gotta admit. This one surprised me.  Every week I conduct a poll on Facebook to determine who gets profiled here next.  This time it was a Three Stooges poll.  To my shock, Moe was the clear winner.  I never would have guessed that.

Moses Harry Horwitz (Moe Howard) was born in Brooklyn on June 19, 1897.  He was the fourth born of five sons to Lithuanian immigrants.  Two of his older brothers, Benjamin and Irving, were not involved in show business.  But Moe, older brother Shemp and younger brother Curley would all become household names as The Three Stooges.

Moe never had much interest in education, often playing hookey from school.  The truant officer usually found him in the same place - standing outside a local playhouse.  Moe would often ask passersby to give him the ten-cent admission price, so he could spend the day watching live performances.  He formally ended his education by dropping out of high school to pursue acting full time.

Ted Healy and His Three Stooges.

By age 16, Moe was already performing in nightclubs, along with Shemp, until their father put an end to it.  He then joined a traveling minstrel show on a Mississippi riverboat for two seasons.

His big break didn't come until 1921, when he joined his childhood friend Ted Healy in a vaudeville routine.  During one stage performance, Shemp heckled the duo from the audience, and the repartee between the three was so entertaining that Shemp was made a permanent  member of the act.  Violinist Larry Fine would join the act in 1928.  Just one year later, the three would strike out on their own following a disagreement with Healy.

The three traveled the country together over the next four years, until Shemp left the group in 1933.  Moe suggested that they recruit younger brother Curley as the new stooge, and in that moment, history was made.

In 1934, the stooges signed with Columbia Pictures.  There they stayed until 1957, producing a total of 190 short films.  Watch the iconic intros here.  While Moe and Larry would remain constants throughout, Curley left the group midway following a stroke.  They'd see a score of replacement stooges, including former act member Shemp, and comedians Joe Besser and Joe DeRita, none of whom would ever replicate Curley's charm.

The Stooges received no residuals for their work, and sought other avenues of employment when their contracts finally expired.  Moe had some minor, walk-on roles in films and television, but he also sold real estate, a profession he had pursued earlier in his life.  He often appeared as a guest on the talk show The Mike Douglas Show, including this episode from 1973.

By 1975, Moe's lifelong nicotine habit had finally caught up with him.  In April that year, he was admitted to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he died of lung cancer on May 4th, just three months after fellow Stooge Larry Fine.  He was 78.

Moe was interred at Hillside Memorial Cemetery in Culver City, California.

Garden of Memories
Alcove of Love
Wall C

Crypt #233

Rest in peace, knucklehead.

Trivia

• Moe created his distinctive hairstyle when still just a boy, as his mother refused to cut his hair, allowing it to grow down to his shoulders.  He would often retreat to the family woodshed to do the job himself, thus explaining the odd-looking bowl cut that he is always associated with.
  
  
• Moe's wife Helen Schonberger, with whom he had two children, was a cousin of Harry Houdini.
  
  
• Moe was working on his autobiography at the time of his death.  It was posthumously released as Moe Howard and The Three Stooges.  Pick up a copy from Amazon.
  
  
• On August 30, 1983, The Three Stooges were posthumously given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, located at 1560 Vine Street.  Look for it in front of the Camden Apartment Building.
  
  
• Philadelphia is home to the world's only museum devoted to The Three Stooges, the aptly named "Stoogeum."  It's well worth a detour on your next trip, but call ahead, as tours are by appointment only.  You can visit their web site here.