Moe Howard, the iconic leader of The Three Stooges, was born Moses Harry Horwitz on June 19, 1897, in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York. He was one of five brothers in a Lithuanian Jewish family, and two of his siblings, Shemp and Curly, would later join him in comedy and become part of the legendary trio. As a child, Moe had little interest in formal schooling, preferring instead to watch plays in theaters. Since juveniles were not permitted inside without an adult, he would wait outside and ask strangers to buy his ticket.
Once inside, he would pick a favorite actor and follow that performer’s movements throughout the show. His mother refused to let him cut his hair, and after being teased at school for his shoulder-length locks, Moe took matters into his own hands and gave himself a bowl cut in the backyard shed. That accidental hairstyle would become his lifelong signature look. He graduated from Public School 163 in Brooklyn and briefly attended Erasmus Hall High School, but he dropped out after just two months, ending his formal education.
At his parents’ request, he enrolled in an electric shop course, but he quit after a few months to return to his passion for acting. Moe began his entertainment career running unpaid errands at Vitagraph Studios in Midwood, where he eventually landed small parts. Most of his early work was destroyed in a fire in 1910. That same year, he began singing in a bar with his older brother Shemp, and by 1914, he joined a minstrel show troupe.
In 1921, he teamed up with Ted Healy for a vaudeville routine, and Shemp later joined them after his marriage. Moe stepped away from the vaudeville group in June 1925 to help his mother manage the family’s real estate business. Meanwhile, the musical revue “A Night in Spain,” featuring Ted Healy and Shemp Howard, gained national attention with a successful Broadway run and national tour. In March 1928, Healy brought vaudeville violinist Larry Fine into the act and convinced Moe to rejoin the group that December.
They toured first as “Ted Healy and His Racketeers” before renaming themselves “Ted Healy and His Stooges. ” The group made their film debut in the 1930 Pre-Code movie “Soup to Nuts. ”
On August 19, 1932, Shemp left the group to pursue a solo career and was replaced by Moe’s youngest brother, Jerry, who adopted the stage name Curly. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer hired Healy and the Stooges in early 1933 and featured them in several MGM films.
In 1934, Ted Healy began pursuing a solo career, prompting Moe to take charge as the leader of the group. Renamed The Three Stooges, the trio signed with Columbia Pictures, where they made 190 comedy shorts through December 1957. Their 1934 short “Men in Black,” a parody of the popular hospital drama “Men in White,” earned the trio their only Oscar nomination, in the category of Best Short Subject (Comedy). Curly suffered a series of strokes, and Shemp agreed to rejoin the group until his brother recovered.
Curly managed to make a cameo appearance in “Hold That Lion,” the 100th Columbia short, released on July 17, 1947. That film became the only Three Stooges production to feature all three Howard brothers—Moe, Shemp, and Curly—on screen together. On January 18, 1952, Curly died after suffering a second series of strokes. During the 1950s, Moe produced Western and musical films.
On November 22, 1955, Shemp succumbed to a heart attack and was eventually succeeded by Joe Besser in 1956. Besser, however, left the group shortly afterward because of his wife’s illness, leaving the position of the third Stooge vacant. Joe DeRita, who had been starring in a series of shorts at Columbia, filled in as the third Stooge in 1958 and gradually revived the spirit of the “Curly Joe” persona. Meanwhile, The Three Stooges reached a new generation of fans when Screen Gems, the television subsidiary of Columbia Pictures, syndicated their classic shorts on television.
The new trio went on to star in six feature films, including box-office hits such as “Have Rocket, Will Travel” (1959) and “The Three Stooges Meet Hercules” (1962). They also appeared on TV shows like “Truth or Consequences,” “The Joey Bishop Show,” and “The Steve Allen Show,” and made appearances in major motion pictures including “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World” (1963) and “4 for Texas” (1963). From 1965 to 1966, they featured in the animated children’s series “The New Three Stooges. ”
The last film starring the members of The Three Stooges was an American comedy titled “Kooks Tour,” originally produced as a pilot for a television show.
Production was halted after Larry suffered a severe stroke on January 9, 1970. The footage was later edited into a 52-minute film by director Norman Maurer, Moe’s son-in-law, and released in 1975 in Super 8 sound home-movie format. Larry Fine died on January 24, 1975, just months before Moe’s own passing. Moe had married Helen Schoenberger on June 7, 1925, and the couple had two children, Joan and Paul, born in 1927 and 1935 respectively.
A heavy smoker, Moe was diagnosed with lung cancer and died from the disease on May 4, 1975, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was laid to rest in an outdoor crypt at Hillside Memorial Park Cemetery in Culver City. His autobiography, “I Stooge to Conquer,” which he began writing during his final days, was published posthumously in 1977 as “Moe Howard and the Three Stooges.
” On August 30, 1983, Moe was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street.