Showing posts with label The Three Stooges. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Three Stooges. Show all posts
February 27, 2022
June 19, 2021
Moe Howard ~ No mummy's dummy
~
Today is the birthday of Moses Harry Horwitz who is better known by his stage name, Moe Howard. He was an American actor and comedian who is best remembered as the leader of the comedy team, ‘The Three Stooges.’
He was the leader and the most aggressive of the Stooges, much given to
bopping the others on the head with mallets, tweaking their noses,
gouging their eyes, kicking their shins and committing otherwise
cheerful acts of mayhem that magically never seemed to harm his partners
(YouTube links below).
photo: John Springer Collection / Corbis / Getty
Moe's
mother did not allow him to cut his hair during his childhood. When he
was being teased at school for having grown his hair to shoulder length,
he gave himself a haircut in his backyard shed. His ‘bowl cut’
hairstyle eventually became his distinctive style.
photo by Shirley V. Martin
I was not so keen on the group until I saw the film Mummy's Dummies
sometime in the late forties. The action takes place in Ancient Egypt
and I was beginning to be interested in Archaeology so it peaked my
interest.
Moe Howard started out in the 1920s as part of a vaudeville comedy act titled ‘Ted
Healy and His Stooges.’ The act originally had Moe and Ted Healy who
were later joined by Shemp Howard and Larry Fine (link below). Eventually, The Three Stooges
became distinguished for its slapstick comedy and farce with Moe and
Larry as its two mainstays. Though only three performers took the stage
to complete one act, a total of six performers (stooges) were featured
throughout the act’s running period of almost five decades. The Three Stooges collaborated with Columbia Pictures
and made 190 short films and Moe was widely recognized as one of the
stooges. He was seen in more than 250 films during his career spanning
six decades.
During those sixty years Moe Howard
struggled to replace, with brilliance, determination and luck, a
"Curly"Stooge
as each actor portraying him suffered ill health or died. The original
Curly's health problems brought back Shemp, who in turn was replaced by
comedian Joe Besser, who eventually gave way to "Curly Joe" DeRita.
Moe Howard died of lung cancer at age 77 on May 4, 1975, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had been admitted a week earlier in April, just over three months after the death of Larry Fine (link below) and just before his 78th birthday.
NY Times obit
His wife Helen Schonberger died of a heart attack later that year on
October 31, 1975, at age 75 and was interred in the crypt next to him on
the right.
At the time of his death, Moe Howard was working on his
autobiography titled I Stooged to Conquer. It was released in 1977 as Moe Howard and the Three Stooges.
There is an interesting and fun interview by David Letterman with the daughter of Moe, Joan Howard Maurer, on February 9, 1983 (link below).
Viewfinder links:
Net links:
YouTube links:
Ken R. Deutch ~ Moe Howard interview) (audio w/images)
Mike Douglas Show ~ Moe Howard (1 Hr., 9 Mins.)
Moe Howard ~
at Home (no sound)
Bad to the Bone video tribute
Richard Lamparski ~ Moe Howard (interview) (audio w/images)
David Letterman ~ Joan Howard Maurer (10 mins.)
"Only fools are positive."
~ Moe Howard
Moe Howard articles/mentions
Moe Howard ~ No mummy's dummy
mentions:
Larry Fine ~ A mummy's dummy
The Three Stooges
mentions:
Larry Fine ~ A mummy's dummy
The Three Stooges
date & photographer unknown
Larry Fine articles/mentions
Larry Fine ~ A mummy's dummy
mentions:
Moe Howard ~ No mummy's dummy
The Three Stooges
mentions:
Moe Howard ~ No mummy's dummy
The Three Stooges
date & photographer unknown
October 5, 2017
Larry Fine ~ A mummy's dummy
Disorder in the Court (1936)
Today, October 5, is the birthday of Louis Feinberg who was born in 1902, 115 years ago, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is better known professionally as Larry Fine, an American actor, comedian, violinist and boxer and a member of the comedy act, The Three Stooges.
The Stooges must have made a bazillion film shorts but of them all, Mummy's Dummies, their 111th film (November 4, 1948), is my all-time favorite. I was 8 years old and totally enamored of all things ancient, especially Egypt and King Tutankhamun of the New Kingdom. At the time, it was my desire to be an archeologist when I grew up; that didn't happen but I've never lost my fascination of ancient civilizations.
Mummy's Dummies had the zany trio cast as used chariot salesmen in Ancient Egypt; need I say more?
The Pharaoh was King Rootentootin, played by Vernon Dent. I remember howling with unbridled laughter every time his name was mentioned. Well, to be honest, I still do; yes, I admit I HAVE to watch it when I come across it on TV.
Vernon Dent as King Rootentootin
Dent was featured in many of the Three Stooges films; he
made more appearances in their films than any other supporting actor
(96). Dent also appeared with The Three Stooges on a live CBS Television broadcast of The Frank Sinatra Show on January 1, 1952. Through his association with the Stooges, Dent became a close friend of Shemp Howard.
The plot
King Rootentootin has a toothache and Shemp is Painless Papyrus, an expert (???) dentist. Eventually Rootentootin offers the hand of his daughter Fatima, played by Dee Green, in marriage to Painless (Shemp). The laughs generated by this exchange are non-stop. Totally silly, totally wacky but totally hysterical (link to YouTube below).
When Larry Fine was a child, his left arm was badly burned from acid used by his father in his jewelry business and a skin graft was done on his arm. The doctors recommended that he be given violin lessons as a form of therapy; playing the violin was supposed to strengthen his damaged arm muscles. His skill as a violinist became so impressive that eventually, he began to play professionally and played in local theater amateur nights usually taking the top prize.
Fine was also a boxer who earned money as a lightweight fighter. Later on, he would develop an act in which he would do a Russian dance while playing the violin. He went on with Moe Howard and Curly Howard to form The Three Stooges, who appeared in the Columbia Pictures shorts beginning in 1934.
On January 9, 1970, Fine suffered a stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. It marked the end of his performing career. He moved to the Motion Picture Country House, an industry retirement community in Woodland Hills, where he completed his "as told to" autobiography, Stroke of Luck. He suffered several additional strokes before his death on January 24, 1975, at the nursing home, at age 72.
Viewfinder links:
The Three Stooges
The Andrews Sisters
Batman, Adam West & the Whole Gang
The Night of the Hunter & Robert Mitchum
Net links:
The Three Stooges:
Filmography
website bios
NY Times Larry Fine obit
YouTube links:
The Three Stooges 111: Mummy's Dummies 1948 (16 minutes) Disorder in the Court
Thanks for the yuks, Larry!
Styrous® ~ Thursday, October 5, 2017
August 3, 2017
January 30, 2013
The Andrews Sisters ~ goodbye & thanks
Maxine (left), Patty (middle), LaVerne (right) - 1947
photographer unknown
(click on any image to see larger size)
The news of her death brought back very old memories long dormant. Like the memory of kneeling on the floor in front of the radio with my ear as close to it as my mom would let me and listening to them swing, bop 'n croon all those fantastic tunes they dreamed up for us.
I remember going to the movie matinee on Saturday afternoons with a million kids throwing popcorn at each other while the theater showed a double bill of two way-older-than-god movies (usually westerns but once in a while you lucked out and it was "Frankenstein" or "Dracula"), an installation of a serial (if you were REAL lucky it was not Tom Mix or Gene Autry . . .
. . . a thousand cartoons, a hundred coming attractions, endless refreshment ads, maybe the Three Stooges . . .
. . . the news reels such as Pathé News, The March of Time or Movietone News with their up to the date (up to the minute was still a future concept) info about what was happening in the world . . .
. . . then all of a sudden in the middle of this hogpodge up comes a fantastic musical movie short (precursors of the modern day music video) featuring famous music personalities, and sometimes it was the Andrews Sisters giving forth their magnificent musical magic. It gave those radio personalities faces I would visualize when I heard them again on the radio.
The Andrews Sisters were an intrinsic part of my childhood and, as good, life-long friends often do, would pop up from time to time. Sometimes there were years between appearances but when it happened, it was always with a continuity as if there had not been a minute passed since the last visit. And, of course, always with the joy of seeing/hearing them again, bringing back all those old, long-cherished feelings of pleasure mixed with nostalgia for a time and world long vanished.
left: Tom Mix right: Gene Autry
photographer unknown photographer unknown
but Flash Gordon with Buster Crabbe) . . .
Flash Gordon Buster Crabbe
movie poster as Flash Gordon
. photographer unknown
. . . a thousand cartoons, a hundred coming attractions, endless refreshment ads, maybe the Three Stooges . . .
The Three Stooges
. . . the news reels such as Pathé News, The March of Time or Movietone News with their up to the date (up to the minute was still a future concept) info about what was happening in the world . . .
Movietone News news reels
(ALL for only 9¢)
. . . then all of a sudden in the middle of this hogpodge up comes a fantastic musical movie short (precursors of the modern day music video) featuring famous music personalities, and sometimes it was the Andrews Sisters giving forth their magnificent musical magic. It gave those radio personalities faces I would visualize when I heard them again on the radio.
The Andrews Sisters were an intrinsic part of my childhood and, as good, life-long friends often do, would pop up from time to time. Sometimes there were years between appearances but when it happened, it was always with a continuity as if there had not been a minute passed since the last visit. And, of course, always with the joy of seeing/hearing them again, bringing back all those old, long-cherished feelings of pleasure mixed with nostalgia for a time and world long vanished.
The Andrews Sisters were inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame in 1998.
The Andrews Sisters can be heard on YouTube.
Thanks, LaVerne, Maxene and Patty for the beauty and joy you gave me and the world. You, your incredible harmonies and your glorious songs will live on forever in history, the world and in my heart.
Styrous® ~ Wednesday, January 30, 2013
~
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