Moe Howard

Howard was born as Moses Harry Horwitz on June 19, 1897, in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of Bensonhurst, the fourth of five sons of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants Jennie ( Gorovitz) and Solomon Horwitz. He was called Moe as a child and later called himself Harry. His parents and brothers Benjamin ("Jack") and Isidore (Irving) were not involved in show business. However he, his older brother Samuel ("Shemp"), and his younger brother Jerome ("Curly") eventually became known professionally as The Three Stooges. He loved to read, as his older brother Jack recalled: "I had many Horatio Alger books, and it was Moe's greatest pleasure to read them. They started his imaginative mind working and gave him ideas by the dozen. I think they were instrumental in putting thoughts into his head to become a person of good character and successful." This helped him in his acting career; he could memorize his lines quickly and easily. Howard's "bowl cut" hairstyle became his trademark, despite his mother initially refusing to cut his hair in childhood, letting it grow to shoulder length. He secretly cut his hair in his backyard shed after being frequently teased in school. During one appearance on The Mike Douglas Show in the 1970s, he stated, "I used to fight my way to school, in school, and back home from school." Howard developed an interest in acting, which caused his grades to worsen and prompted him to became a truant: "I used to stand outside the theater knowing the truant officer was looking for me. I would stand there 'til someone came along and ask them to buy my ticket. An adult needed to accompany a juvenile into the theater. When I succeeded, I'd give him my ten cents—that's all it cost—and I'd go up to the top of the balcony where I'd put my chin on the rail and watch, spellbound, from the first act to the last. I would usually select the actor I liked the most and follow his performance throughout the play." Despite his waning attendance, Howard graduated from P.S. 163 in Brooklyn, but he dropped out of Erasmus Hall High School after two months, ending his formal education. He took an electric shop course to please his parents but quit after a few months to pursue a career in show business. Howard started off running unpaid errands at the Vitagraph Studios in Midwood, Brooklyn and was rewarded with bit parts in movies in production there, until a 1910 fire destroyed the films done there, and with it, most of Howard's work. Already in 1909, he had met a young man named Ernest Lea Nash (later known as Ted Healy), who was later to provide a significant boost for his career aspirations. In 1912, they both held a summer job working in Annette Kellermann's aquatic act as diving "girls". ==Career==

Howard continued his attempts at gaining show-business experience by singing in a bar with his older brother Shemp, until their father put a stop to it. Starting in 1914, they performed with a minstrel show troupe on a Mississippi River showboat for two summers, presenting an act they called "Howard and Howard—A Study in Black". At the same time, they worked for a rival vaudeville circuit without makeup. In 1922, Howard joined Ted Healy in a vaudeville routine. In 1923, Moe saw Shemp in the audience during a theater performance and yelled at him from the stage. Shemp responded by heckling Moe, and the two brothers' amusing bickering during the performance resulted in Healy's immediately hiring Shemp as a permanent part of the act. Moe retired in June 1925 after his marriage to Helen Schonberger and went into real estate with his mother. Meanwhile, Healy's act with frequent stooge Shemp Howard went on to national fame in the Shubert Brothers' A Night in Spain, which had a successful Broadway run, as well as a national tour. During A Night in Spain, and at the end of a four-month run in Chicago, Healy recruited vaudeville violinist Larry Fine to join the troupe in March 1928. After the show ended in late November, Healy signed for the Shuberts' new revue A Night in Venice and coaxed Moe Howard out of retirement to rejoin the act in December 1928. In rehearsals in early 1929, Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard came together for the first time as a trio. When A Night in Venice closed in March 1930, Healy and the trio toured for a while as "Ted Healy and His Racketeers" (later changed to Ted Healy and His Stooges). In July 1932, Moe, Larry, and Shemp were approached by Healy to rejoin him for the new Shubert Broadway revue Passing Show of 1932, and the three accepted the offer. On August 16, 1932, during Passing rehearsals in New York, Ted walked out on the Shuberts over a contract dispute. On August 19, 1932, Shemp gave his notice, having not seen eye-to-eye with the hard-drinking and sometimes belligerent Healy, and decided to remain with Passing. That show closed in September after bad reviews of its first roadshow performances in Detroit and Cincinnati. Shemp landed at Vitaphone Studios in Brooklyn in May 1933, where he stayed for almost four years. On August 20, the day after Shemp's departure, Moe suggested adding his youngest brother Jerome ("Babe" to Moe and Shemp) to the act; contrary to some sources, no search for a replacement was conducted. Healy initially passed on Jerry, but Jerry was so eager to join the act that he shaved off his luxuriant auburn mustache and hair and ran on stage during Healy's routine. That finally got Healy to hire Jerry, who took the stage name Curly., at age 60, necessitating another Stooge. Producer Jules White used old footage of Shemp to complete four more films, with Columbia regular Joe Palma filling in for Shemp (thus creating the Fake Shemp phenomenon), until Columbia head Harry Cohn hired Joe Besser in 1956. According to Moe's autobiography, Howard wanted a "two-stooge" act, and Cohn's idea, not Howard's, was to replace Shemp as part of the act. The Stooges replaced Shemp with Besser; already an established Columbia comedy shorts star in his own right and frequent movie supporting player. Joe, Larry, and Moe filmed 16 shorts through December 1957. Shortly before Cohn's death in February 1958, the making of short subjects ended. Keeping himself busy, Moe was hired by Harry Romm as associate producer. According to Moe, stories (and later, scenes in a 2000 made-for-TV biopic) that he was forced to take a job as a gofer at Columbia are entirely false. Off to See the Wizard, and Truth or Consequences but, by the late 1960s, they were all at an age where they could no longer risk serious injury while performing slapstick comedy. Later years The men were paid residuals for their later efforts and continued to receive the bulk of the profits from sales of Stooges merchandise. Moe sold real estate when his show-business life slowed down. However, he still did minor solo roles and walk-on bits in movies, such as ''Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title (1966) and Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls (1973), as well as several appearances on The Mike Douglas Show'' in the 1970s. In one of Douglas's episodes, Moe, his hair in a style popular at the time, made a surprise appearance during an interview with the writer of a "where-are-they-now" book. When the audience was given a chance to ask the writer about famous people, Howard asked, "Whatever happened to the Three Stooges?" Finally recognized by Douglas, he combed his hair into his trademark style. The Stooges attempted to make a final film in 1969, ''Kook's Tour, which was essentially a documentary of Howard, Larry, and Curly Joe out of character, touring the US, and meeting with fans. Production halted when on January 9, 1970, Larry suffered a major stroke during filming, paralyzing the left side of his body. He died on January 24, 1975, at age 72. Enough footage of Larry was shot so that Kook's Tour'' was eventually released in a 52-minute version to home video. After Fine's stroke, Howard asked longtime Three Stooges supporting actor Emil Sitka to replace Larry, but this final lineup never shot any material. ==Personal life==

On June 7, 1925, Moe Howard married Helen Schonberger (December 19, 1899 - October 31, 1975), a cousin of Harry Houdini. The following year, Schonberger persuaded Howard to retire since she was pregnant. Howard attempted to earn a living in a succession of "normal" jobs, none of which was very successful, and he soon returned to working with Ted Healy. Howard and Schonberger had two children, Joan Howard (April 2, 1927 – September 21, 2021) and Paul Howard (born July 8, 1935). In June 1945, Howard legally had his name changed from Moses Horwitz to Moe Howard. ==Filmography==

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 Larry Fine's death, and just short of his 78th birthday. He was a heavy smoker for much of his adult life. He is entombed in an outdoor crypt at Culver City's Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery. His wife Helen Schonberger died of a heart attack on October 31, 1975, at age 75 and is interred in the crypt next to him on the right. At the time of his death, Howard was working on his autobiography titled I Stooged to Conquer. It was released in 1977 as Moe Howard and the Three Stooges. Howard and the Three Stooges received a posthumous star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame on August 30, 1983, at 1560 Vine Street. Howard was portrayed by Paul Ben-Victor in The Three Stooges, a 2000 made-for-TV biopic that focused on the trio's years in show business and their off-screen lives. In the 2012 Farrelly brothers' film The Three Stooges, Chris Diamantopoulos portrays Moe and Skyler Gisondo portrays Young Moe. ==References==