Background
He was born Moses Horwitz in the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1897, the son of Solomon Horwitz (originally Gorovitz), a clothing cutter, and Jennie Horwitz, a real estate agent.
( Telling the full story of the head Stooge, this work re...)
Telling the full story of the head Stooge, this work reveals the life-long career of a legendary funnyman. Born into a working-class family in Brooklyn, Moe Howard transformed his real-life experiences of getting into mischief with his brother Shemp into the plots that would have millions rolling in the aisles. From childhood, Moe’s ambition was to perform—whether it was plucking a ukulele on the beach, or playing a halfwit on a Mississippi showboat. But he only found success when he joined with Shemp and Larry Fine to play, as the New York Times put it, “three of the frowziest numskulls ever assembled.” As the brains behind the Three Stooges, he went on to act in hundreds of their movies, introducing his little brother Curly into the act when Shemp departed, and, after Curly’s death, partnering with Joe Besser and finally Joe de Rita. This is Moe Howard’s self-penned, no-holds-barred story of the ups and downs of his life, ranging from personal family tragedies to tidbits about career mishaps and triumphs. It overflows with the easygoing charm, generosity, and inspired lunacy of the “wise guy” behind America’s most successful comedy trio.
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He was born Moses Horwitz in the Bensonhurst area of Brooklyn, N. Y. in 1897, the son of Solomon Horwitz (originally Gorovitz), a clothing cutter, and Jennie Horwitz, a real estate agent.
He attended P. S. 163 in Brooklyn and then Erasmus High School for two months. Howard never completed his high school education. To please his parents, he took a class in electric shop at the Baron De Hirsch Trade School in New York. Show business was the magnet attracting Moe from his studies and he would skip school to frequent the local theaters. While in school he earned a reputation as a prankster.
He began to frequent the sets of the Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn, where he ran errands and made himself useful just for the pleasure of being around actors. This led to small parts in silent films with comedians John Bunny and Flora Finch and with juvenile favorite, Earle Williams. In 1909 Howard joined an aquatic act, the Annette Kellerman Divers, along with Ted Healy, the future vaudeville star, who would be of influence in his career. The aquatic act was followed by a brief singing debut with his older brother Samuel ("Shemp") Howard. Shemp and he then formed a comedy "clean up" act that was purposefully so bad it cleared out the old audience to make room for a new crowd.
Moe, in 1914, took a job performing on Captain Billie Bryant's showboat, the Sunflower, on the Mississippi River. He did this successfully for two summers. Moe returned to vaudeville with Shemp and performed on the RKO and Loew's circuit until Ted Healy hired him in 1922 as his stooge; Shemp and Larry Fine joined him in 1925 to make up the trio. During a ten-year relationship with Ted Healy, the Three Stooges developed the slapstick and physical mayhem that became their trademark.
The film Soup to Nuts, produced in 1930 and starring Healy, marked the Stooges' entrance into a medium where Moe would perform until his last film in 1965. The Stooges, led by Moe, appeared in 190 two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures and twenty-two feature films in which they starred in at least seven. In all of these, Moe was always the leader, setting the routines' stunts and attending to the team's finances.
After Soup to Nuts, Shemp left the team to pursue his own career in entertainment. The youngest Howard brother, Jerome ("Curly"), became his replacement and was considered by critics to be the best comedian of the three Stooges. Illness in 1946 forced Curly to leave the trio, and Shemp returned until his death in 1955. Joe Besser became his replacement. Two years after Shemp's death Columbia refused to renew the Stooges' contract on the theory that their comedy no longer fitted the sophisticated tastes of the audiences.
However, their fame rebounded, and they once again found themselves in feature films. Tours and appearances on television talk shows underscored the popularity of the Stooges with the public. The act was faltering, however. When Larry Fine died in 1975, Moe carried on by himself until his weakness from lung cancer brought his long career to an end. The comedy of the Three Stooges has suffered from the snobbery of those who scorned it as mere slapstick. But with the passage of time, Moe Howard and his Stooges gained respect as people have better understood their audience and their time.
( Telling the full story of the head Stooge, this work re...)
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Quotations:
"If there's anything I like better than honey and ketchup, it's baloney and whipped cream – and we haven't got any!"
"Every time you think you weaken the nation. "
"I used to stand outside the theater knowing the truant officer was looking for me. I would stand there 'til someone came along and then ask them to buy my ticket. "
On June 7, 1925, Moe married Helen Blanche Schonberger. They had two children.
In 1940 Moe and his wife bought a home in Hollywood. They lived there for fifteen years.