I Stooged to Conquer

by Moe Howard

  During this same period, Shemp was having his poultry problems, too. His wife, Babe, came to me one day and said, “Moe, Shemp’s chicken Veronica Lake [her comb hung over her eye] flew into the neighbor’s yard and is digging up his plants. Please help us. He not only hates chickens, he hates everybody.”

  One disaster-prone hunting trip is forthcoming in Idiots DeLuxe (1945), with idiots Moe, Curly, and Larry.

  This trip back to nature ends up a tree in Idiots DeLuxe, and Moe figures out whom to blame.

  Southern gents Larry and Moe are annoyed at the attention Curly is getting from Marilyn Johnson, Eleanor Counts, and Faye Williams in Uncivil War Birds (1946).

  The stooges, behind bars for bootlegging in Beer Barrel Polecats (1946), indulge in their usual harassment of warden Vernon Dent.

  Moe says “Spread out!” but Larry and Curly ain’t budging in this publicity shot.

  The next day, I rode over on my bicycle and found Shemp leaning over the fence with a thin wire lasso in one hand a fistful of corn in the other. He was dropping the corn in the center of the loop of the lasso, attempting to snare Veronica. Every time she grabbed the corn, Shemp would miss snagging her. He finally gave up that method and turned to another one. He baited a fishhook with a worm, cast it over the fence, trying to hook Veronica like a fish. But she would bite the end of the worm off and run away, leaving the other half still on the hook and Shemp holding the bag. After a while the score was Veronica 12, Shemp 0.

  “Take it away, Shemp,” I said. “There’s only one way to catch her.” I took a handful of corn and climbed the fence, with one eye open for Shemp’s mean neighbor. I laid a trail of seed to a small mound of corn, and when Veronica got to the corn, I grabbed her by the neck and shot back over the fence with her. I gave her back to Shemp, who punched Veronica in the eye and threw her headlong into the henhouse. Early the next morning, he went to the local butcher and traded his twelve live hens for six dead pullets. He held Veronica until last and gave her one last affectionate whack in the eye before handing her over to the butcher. So ended our farming and chicken business.

  During the war, Helen and I entertained soldiers in our home. I went through air raid drills as an air raid warden but, unlike our wild comedies, I didn’t foul up—at least, not too much.

  Moe and Larry restrain Curly in Monkey Businessmen (1946).

  Curly is genuinely shocked at the way Moe changes a blown fuse in Monkey Businessmen.

  Larry, Curly, and Moe are ex-GIs in G.I. Wanna Home (1946), eager for their first stateside meal.

  A startled Moe realizes it’s time for the next take.

  Larry, Moe, and Curly are obliged to fill in for a trio of girls who failed to show up in Rhythm and Weep (1946).

  I can still remember an afternoon when things really hit home. We heard a crash in the rear of our garden just a few feet from the pool. An army training plane had smashed into the telephone wires and hurtled to the ground, killing the pilot.

  Toward war’s end, my daughter fell in love with a sailor, Norman Maurer, a photographer stationed at the Long Beach navy base. He was a comic book cartoonist and a very handsome and likable fellow. After a two-year courtship, they were married. The wedding took place in our garden: water lilies in the pool, the tennis court covered with a wooden dance floor, the garden spilling over with flowers. Where none could ever grow, the florist just inserted them. The ceremony was followed by a lavish dinner served at umbrella-covered tables, while two orchestras added the final touch.

  Moe is father of the bride at daughter Joan’s 1947 wedding to Norman Maurer. Young Paul is part of the bridal party.

  It was not long before I spotted in Norman’s work as a comic book cartoonist, a close parallel to the movie industry. He wrote the stories and dialogue, directed his characters, cast them, created their wardrobe, etc. Years later, when we finally did our features for Columbia, Norman was assigned the job of writing and producing them, and he directed our last two features.

  Joan and Norman gave us two grandchildren, Michael and Jeffrey. Number three is my son Paul’s daughter, Jennifer. One day, I recall, Joan phoned me and asked if I wouldn’t pick up her boys after school. Always being the early bird, I parked my car and decided to wait in front of the school. A short time later Mike and Jeff came charging out, followed by about two hundred screaming kids stampeding toward me. It looked like a Merrill Lynch commercial. The boys had told their friends Moe was picking them up. Friends had told friends, and the word of mouth created a minor mob scene. It wasn’t long before an indignant teacher rushed up to me and told me that I’d better leave—I was inciting a riot.

  Another time, I received an urgent message at the studio to call Joan immediately. Fearing the worst, chicken Moe phoned her to learn that Michael and Jeffrey had found our picture in one of the volumes of the World Book Encyclopedia which she had just bought for them.

  Stooges in an encyclopedia! I didn’t believe it! She was pulling my leg. That night, I found out. There in volume C, under the heading Comedy, was a single illustration: a photograph of Larry and me bending a crowbar around Curly’s neck.

  Under the heading of trials and tribulations was a weekend show date we had booked. Curly had just bought a beautiful new car. We were working in Hartford during the week and were headed for Willimantic, Connecticut, for a midwinter weekend. The snow was heavy, and as we left Hartford, it had started to rain. The roads were soon covered with a thin layer of ice to go with deep banks of snow along the edges. Curly was driving, and after approximately fifteen miles, the country roads became quite hilly. On one steep incline, Curly’s car started sliding from one side of the road to the other and finally went completely out of control. We began skidding in tight circles despite the fact that Curly was doing a masterful job of trying to control the car. A few terrifying moments later, it started careening backward for what seemed an eternity and suddenly smacked into a snowdrift and came to a stop. Larry and I got out, congratulating Curly on his fantastic steering.

  Surveying the situation, we wondered what would be the best way to proceed. Curly kept revving the motor and twisting the steering wheel, but the rear wheels just kept spinning and shooting out a geyser of ice and snow. We put the jack under one of the rear wheels, but the spinning wheels just buried the jack deep into the snow. Finally, I came up with a sensational idea. I reminded the boys that we had our stage wardrobe in the trunk. I placed two stage coats and one pair of pants under one wheel and a dressing room robe and two makeup towels under the other one, and then told Curly to get in the car, start the motor, and give it gas. Never in my life did I ever see such a shower of clothes flung in every direction. We never did find our wardrobe. A farmer finally got us out of our difficulty by selling us a half bale of hay and tossing it under each wheel. We made it to the theater fifteen minutes before showtime and found we were the only act, out of five, that got there. We did an entire one-hour-twenty-eight-minute show without leaving the stage. The audience went wild.

  One Sunday afternoon I was barbecuing chicken for twenty-four guests. I had picked up fourteen nice-sized broilers at the Farmer’s Market, cleaned them and cut them in half, and brushed them with my special sauce. I put them in the refrigerator to marinate for a few hours. I was going to cook these twenty-eight chicken halves on my barbecue and another one that I had borrowed from a neighbor.

  At about one in the afternoon, I was ready to put the birds on the fire made with hickory charcoal and wet hickory shavings, which I lit with an electric starter. I laid out the chicken halves on the two barbecues. It was a seemingly endless task. First I brushed and turned and basted the chicken on one barbecue, then I brushed and turned and basted the chicken on the other. What a chore! It took me over an hour, but at last they were done to a turn—and so was I. All that basting and rotating had me dizzy.

  Well, the meal was great; that was the consensus of all my guests. I was all in! That night I had a nightmare in Technicolor.

  I remember
vividly seeing myself basting those chickens, turning from barbecue to barbecue, when suddenly, while my back was turned, one of the chickens flew off the portable barbecue and made about four turns in the air above my head. It was totally naked—no feathers at all. Smoke was streaming from its fanny. It made one more fast circle in the air and then flew through the door that opened from our living room to the porch where I was barbecuing. Now flames were shooting out of its behind. I chased it into the living room, wielding my barbecue fork and taking swipes at it as it flew around the room, shooting flames like a flamethrower. I kept missing it. It flew behind our drapes. I was frantic. Now the drapes were smoking and burning. I couldn’t get to any water to put the fire out, so I took the only course of action possible. I opened my fly and shot a stream of urine at the drapes. At that moment, I felt a blow on top of my head. This wasn’t a dream. My wife was yelling, “What are you doing? I’m soaked … you’ve wet me … and why are you yelling ‘Fire, fire’?” I was never so embarrassed in my life. After that night, I vowed never to barbecue for more than my family.

  14

  CHANGES AMONG THE STOOGES

  During our layoff period at Columbia in the mid-’40s, we were contracted by the owners of a small, rather rundown theater in New Orleans who wanted us to play on their bill. They turned out to be the Minskys of burlesque fame. Harold Minsky, who was a true showman, was attempting to change over a small house to vaudeville and wanted to get name acts that would draw customers. His mother and father were operating the theater while Harold took care of booking the acts.

  Ludicrous as the situation may seem, the elder Minskys had not been on speaking terms for many years. If Mrs. Minsky wanted to say something to her husband, she would do it through Harold: “Tell that idiot to stay in the department, where he belongs.” Then Mr. Minsky would reply through Harold, “Tell Mrs. Idiot to mind her own part of the business.” As if Harold didn’t have enough to worry about, he had Mr. and Mrs. Minsky.

  Minsky’s theater was set up so that at the back of the last row of seats a section was set aside for standing room, where about eighty people could be tightly wedged together. There was an exit door at each end of this section, with a crash bar across the door in case of fire or other trouble. In the front of the theater were six steps the width of the front, which was about sixty feet wide. Flanking the steps were guardrails; to the right was the box office where Mrs. Minsky sold her tickets. Behind was another box office with a cashier who sold tickets to blacks only. Remember, this was New Orleans, and black people could sit only in the gallery.

  When Harold Minsky asked the Stooges to play his theater—I took care of the business for the act—I replied, “Our salary has gone up since the old days. We now get forty-five hundred a week.”

  Harold said, “I need you fellows very badly. What kind of a deal can you make me?”

  I told him, “Harold, you guarantee us fifteen hundred dollars. We’ll get four acts for you, and you give us a fifty-fifty split from the first dollar above our fifteen hundred.” Harold thanked me profusely for giving him a break. I then realized after making the deal that the only way we would do good business was to create a maximum amount of audience turnover. I found the answer to this problem after the first performance. I announced to the audience that if they would line up at the stage door in the alley next to the theater, we would give each person a picture. Although it was raining like mad outside, our loyal fans lined up just to be able to get an autographed photo. Meanwhile, the house had cleared and another group was packed in.

  That was a week to remember. Mrs. Minsky sold tickets in the front box office, and I recall standing out front one day. A woman saw me and said to her friend, “That’s the ugly one who hits the two nice Stooges.” Her friend replied, “Don’t talk like that. He just keeps the other two guys in line, like my Albert does with our two boys.” Mrs. Minsky’s face beamed as the people kept pouring in: “Moe, I have a sneaky feeling that we’re going to make a lot of money.” Then, a large, swarthy woman stepped up to the box office and asked for two adult tickets and three juniors. The woman was carrying a child completely covered by a blanket. Mrs. Minsky reached out and uncovered the child, who turned out to be a boy of fifteen—with a mustache yet. Mrs. M. was a tough old bird, and at one point when the theater was jammed, she kept urging the people to come in, saying that there was plenty of room inside. It was so packed that one man who was already inside was shoved to the outside by the crowd and was forced to buy another ticket to get in again.

  That week we gave away a grand total of thirty thousand pictures and did $15,000 worth of business. This was fantastic for that size house. The Minskys wanted us back, but our contract kept us from returning.

  It was May 14, 1946, a day so indelibly imprinted in my mind. We were just finishing Half-Wits’ Holiday, a remake of one of our favorite comedies, Hoi Polloi. It was a clever, funny film that brought to an end the career of one of the great comics of his time.

  Curly sat in director Jules White’s chair waiting to be called to do the last scene of the day, while I was finishing one with Larry. It was terribly humid, and the heat on the soundstage was stifling. Larry and I finished our scene, and the assistant director called for Curly to come in to complete the final scene of the picture. Curly didn’t answer. I went out to get him and found him with his head dropped to his chest. I said, “Babe”—I called him sometimes by his childhood nickname—and Curly looked up at me and tried to speak; his mouth was distorted and speech would not come. Tears rolled down his cheeks, and soon there were tears running down mine. I thought my heart would break. I immediately knew that he had had a stroke. I put my arms around him and kissed his cheek and forehead. He squeezed my hand but couldn’t say a word. I had the studio car take him home while I finished his scene. When Jules finally said, “That’s it. Wrap it up,” I ran to my car without taking off my makeup or wardrobe and drove to Curly’s house.

  After Curly’s stroke, I arranged for him to be taken to the Motion Picture Country House in Woodland Hills, where he could get the best of care and therapy. I was with him almost constantly.

  Later, when I had time to collect my thoughts, I had the feeling that this would be the end of the Three Stooges. Who could take Curly’s place? He was a genius in his field, kind, considerate, and so carefree and humorous. He drank far too much liquor, and I knew the reason why. After his gun accident as a teenager, he was in quite a bit of pain when he stood too long. The fact that he had to shave his head for the act was also a factor: he felt that he had no longer any appeal for the fair sex. So he drank to give himself the courage to approach any young lady that appealed to him.

  Curly remained in ill health for six years, having additional strokes, and passed away in January 1952 at the age of forty-nine.

  Larry and I wondered if it was possible to revive the Three Stooges. Many performers were presented to me by agents, but they didn’t have a tenth of what was needed to fill the bill. Finally it hit me: why not Shemp! He had been one of the Stooges before Curly. I presented the idea to Columbia, but the front office felt that Shemp looked too much like me. So I told them it’s Shemp or you don’t have the Stooges anymore at Columbia. They quickly changed their minds, and Shemp once again joined the act. The Stooges were back in business again. I felt very low for a long time but never snowed it. Every time I smacked or poked Shemp I was seeing Curly. This feeling finally left me and I was able to think clearly again.

  The first two-reeler we did with Shemp back as one of the Stooges was Fright Night, in which we play fight managers. Ed Bernds directed that one. Later, when we made Hold That Lion!, Curly came back to do a brief gag appearance. It was the only film in which all three of us Horwitz brothers appeared.

  Shemp is back with the Stooges and gets a roaring welcome in Hold That Lion! (1947).

  Moe, as St. Peter, tells Shemp he can’t enter the Pearly Gates until he reforms his fellow earthbound Stooges, as Marti Shelton takes notes in Heavenly
Daze (1948).

  In Heavenly Daze, the boys demonstrate one of their utensils to a vaguely interested Victor Travers and Symona Boniface.

  Vagabond Loafers (1949) has Shemp doing the role Curly had played in an earlier version of the film (A Plumbing We Will Go).

  Shemp and Moe, in Dopey Dicks (1950), congratulate themselves on foiling the villains, although Stanley Price has a surprise for them.

  The boys take a break in their search for missing pearls in Hugs and Mugs (1950).

  The Three Stooges as broads in Self Made Maids (1950).

  In Self Made Maids, Larry helps Moe put the finishing touches on his makeup.

  Larry, Shemp, and Moe display their ingenuity as census takers in Don’t Throw That Knife (1951).

  The Stooges, director Edward Bernds, and Hugh McCollum accept the 1951 Exhibitor Laurel Award, presented to Larry, Shemp, and Moe.

  Moe and Helen in front of their Toluca Lake home with Helen’s cousin Rosalie and sister Clarice in 1952.

  In 1955, Helen and I decided to sell our home in Toluca Lake and go on a cruise to Europe. Our stay abroad lasted about four months. These were happy days, but my happiness was short-lived.