I Stooged to Conquer

by Moe Howard

  At the end of July 1939, the Three Stooges were booked for two weeks at the Palladium in London. We made the trip over on the Queen Mary, a beautiful ship. Our reservations were for second-class passage, but we were moved up to first-class quarters by the captain, who had seen and enjoyed our comedies in England. The voyage was pretty rough, and passengers were sitting on deck with buckets beside them.

  My sea legs were pretty good, so the rough waters didn’t bother me, but Larry wasn’t taking the trip too well. I suggested that he stroll the deck for some fresh air. We had only walked a few feet when Larry heard one of the passengers retching. At the first sound, he took off for his cabin as though he were shot out of a cannon.

  In Wee Wee Monsieur (1938), harem girls Curly, Moe, and Larry compare biceps with John Lester Johnson.

  Moe, Larry, and friend in Three Missing Links (1938).

  We arrived in London to an amusing double headline in the paper: “Stooges arrive in London—Queen leaves for America.” Our first Palladium engagement was a success, and we were asked to stay on for a second. We also appeared in Blackpool, England, a summer resort, and then went on to Dublin, Ireland. We arrived in Dublin by taxi. The crowds were thick and the cars were thicker, and we suddenly found our taxi hemmed in. We couldn’t move and found ourselves in the midst of a riot. Men were hanging from lampposts with clubs in their hands and swinging at anyone within reach. The sidewalks were jammed with people swinging fists, clubs, and sticks. Bobbies, six feet tall, armed with billy clubs, swung them over the heads of the people. Every so often, a fist would come up from the crowd and hit a bobby smack in the face. We finally reached our destination and ran from the cab to the theater lobby. The manager of the theater told us that the Irish from Northern Ireland had many of their martyrs buried in the South and had started a march to visit their graves. The bobbies had put a chalk line across the sidewalk and warned the leaders not to cross it. One of the leaders, a woman, waved a flag and beckoned her followers over the line, and then the riot started. The manager explained to us that something like this took place every year and resulted in hundreds of injuries. The gang from Northern Ireland never made it and were always driven back.

  Moe and Helen in 1938, celebrating another wedding anniversary.

  After this wild welcome to Dublin, we were greeted by the owner of the Royal Theater, a Jewish cantor with an Irish brogue so thick you could hack it with a cleaver. “Now, boyos,” he told us, “I can’t put the name ‘The Three Stooges’ on the marquee because in Dublin, here, when the boyos have an affair with a girl, they call it ‘stooging,’ so you’ll notice that I changed your names to the ‘Three Hooges.’”

  We did exceptionally well in Dublin, then went on to Glasgow for a week at the Empire Theater. On our way to our hotel, we were followed by a group of pink-cheeked youngsters. They locked arms with us, and before we knew what was happening, they had torn the patch pockets from our coats and run off with Curly’s hat. They only wanted souvenirs. Three bobbies came to our rescue.

  The Foster Agency, which had booked us in Great Britain, came to us in Glasgow with a batch of new contracts for thirty more provinces. We explained that we had signed to appear in the George White’s Scandals of 1939 and had to be back in New York for rehearsals. It was late August and any other bookings would be impossible.

  On our return to London, we found that bomb shelters were being built in Hyde Park and that fire drills were being held. It gave us a strange feeling to see all this going on, not realizing a war was imminent.

  On the upper balcony of our hotel was a television set, and we could see everything that was going on in Hyde Park and other parts of London. This was our first introduction to television.

  Fortunately our passage back to the States had been booked on our arrival to London. As I recall, we left London in the middle of 1939, on the Queen Mary. It was the last civilian trip she made until after World War II.

  In July 1939, we went into rehearsal for George White’s Scandals. We were still under contract to Columbia but in our layoff period between comedies. After breaking in in Boston, the Scandals opened on Broadway on August 28 and turned out to be a very successful show. The cast included Willie and Eugene Howard, Ben Blue, Ella Logan, the Stooges, and a young tap dancer named Ann Miller.

  Matty Brooks and Eddie Davis wrote most of the comedy sketches; many are still done today. One famous sketch, “The Stand-In,” had a pie-throwing sequence that was a pretty messy piece of business. After the first show in Atlantic City, where we were breaking in the new material, George White himself came out with a push broom and helped sweep up the mess. After the first show, this sketch was done on a large rubber mat so that the stagehands only had to pull it out and hose it off backstage.

  I neglected to mention that Lois Andrews, not of the Andrews Sisters, was also in the show. She was quite attractive, and George White really went for her. One day he pressed a little too hard and this sixteen-year-old girl tossed a right to George’s jaw that knocked him through a mirrored door. Lois later married Georgie Jessel, who was three times her age.

  Archeological nuts Larry, Curly, and Moe in We Want Our Mummy (1939).

  Curly gives Ann Doran a shave in Three Sappy People (1939).

  The boys test the punch in Three Sappy People.

  Curly and his newest dog, Shorty, pose with Moe for newspaper photographers in Fall River, Massachusetts, in 1939.

  During the run of the Scandals, a tremendous electronic sign had been built atop a building on Times Square. It consisted of thousands of flashing electric lightbulbs which formed a pattern of the Three Stooges in silhouette, in action. Thousands of people would watch it as they walked along Broadway on their way to nightspots and restaurants. And I must admit Helen and I admired it, too. I stood there in the street, lost among the crowd, and watched myself and the boys slapping each other and doing the eye-poking routine. I can remember standing among the laughing people and listening to their remarks. This is what I’d worked so hard for. Then I would go into the theater with my heart as light as a feather. This is a part of show business that I shall never forget.

  Shortly before the Scandals ended its Broadway run, Larry, Curly, and I had to go back to the Coast to resume filming for Columbia.

  12

  INTO THE ’40s

  In 1940 we were shooting a comedy called A Plumbing We Will Go, with director Del Lord. We had filmed about ten pages of our twenty-nine-page script the first day and another ten by lunchtime the next day. Then we all went to screen the dailies, or rushes, as they are called, where you see what you’ve shot the day before. During the screening we all noticed a shadow revolving in the lower part of the frame. It was continuous and remained there through the entire previous day’s work. No one could figure out what it was or how it got there. Filming continued after lunch when, during one of the scenes, I noticed the director sitting in his usual spot just under the lenses of the camera. I also noticed that he had two fingers wrapped around a clump of hair and he was nervously twirling it around and around. We were in the middle of a take and I stopped dead in my tracks and called to him, “Del, I’ve solved the shadow problem.” When I explained to him that his hair-twirling habit was being filmed along with our comedy, he was dumbfounded. It cost the studio $7,000 to reshoot the film to get rid of the mysterious shadow.

  Plumbing as taught by Curly in A Plumbing We Will Go (1940).

  Three Stooges in a tub that shows every sign of sinking in A Plumbing We Will Go.

  In You Nazty Spy! (1940), the boys have raised the ire of Don Beddoe, Richard Fiske, and Dick Curtis.

  Curly, Larry, and Moe take over the world in You Nazty Spy!

  A trio of little darlings capture, in Nutty but Nice (1940), the appreciative glances of Vernon Dent and John Tyrrell.

  There was one director with whom we worked who shall, for obvious reasons, remain anonymous. He was a nice chap but he had one problem: he liked girls, and he had no trouble amassing quite a
collection. He would meet a girl and promise her a part in a picture. It was a great line. This finally became a problem because these girls, although very attractive, had one failing: they couldn’t act.

  Our director would spend hours on the set getting a passable performance from them until the producers would complain and ask why the films were going over schedule. He’d throw the blame to us, telling them that the Stooges just couldn’t remember their lines.

  When I recall the broad spectrum of the vaudeville dates I’ve played, I think of the worst times and the best times—they stand out so vividly. My blackface act with Shemp, where we were the clean-up act, had to be the worst of vaudeville, and a tour which we made with Morton Downey and his band for the Coca-Cola Company was by far the best from the standpoint of sheer luxury.

  Helen and Moe with Morton Downey’s Coca-Cola tour.

  In vaudeville again in 1940, with Eddie Laughton, their white-suited foil.

  In From Nurse to Worse (1940) the boys take a dance break in the operating room. Moe teams up with Vernon Dent and Larry with John Tyrrell, while Curly amuses Dorothy Appleby and Babe Kane with a smart buck-and-wing.

  Curly gets some “hard water” from Larry and Moe in Rockin’ Thru the Rockies (1940).

  Larry, Moe, and Curly stroll to a 1940 vaudeville date between films.

  The Coca-Cola Company footed the bill and we played every army, navy, and air force installation from Maine to Pensacola. We did—dream of dreams—one show a night, and before each one, we were the guests of the commanding officer and ate at the officers’ club. After the show there was always a gourmet dinner given by the local Coca-Cola bottler.

  We traveled in a private air-conditioned bus. My wife and Morton Downey’s wife accompanied us. Reservations were made for us in the best hotels. Each morning we would start out in a happy mood. We’d climb aboard the bus, the band would play, we would read or relax on the way to the next town. This was one-nighter show business at its best.

  The highlight of this tour turned out to be the naval base in Pensacola, Florida. When Admiral Price learned that Downey and the Stooges loved to fish, he set up an unforgettable trip. The day started with naval air maneuvers. We witnessed an amazing air drop of fourteen hundred parachutists. Then the admiral ordered a sleek, twin-screw ship to pick us up. Its larder was filled with sandwiches and beer on ice. The ship was equipped with a large bait container. It was fascinating to watch the ship’s communication with a helicopter which flew overhead scouting out schools of fish for us. The twin-screw ship could slow down just enough for trolling. The admiral’s aide had a drop line with some bait on it; when he got a bite, he’d wave to another seaman, who would drop anchor and put out a yellow marker. Then we all began to fish: Morton, the boys from his band, we Three Stooges, and Admiral Price, who, believe it or not, was cutting bait for us.

  Not to turn this into an unbelievable fish story, I ended up catching about eighty pounds of red snapper and twenty trigger fish.

  Joan and Paul let their father know what they think of his script.

  Despite the confines of their cell in In the Sweet Pie and Pie (1941), Eddie Laughton manages to remain spotless as the Stooges wield paintbrushes.

  The boys clown with Franchot Tone on the set of their Columbia feature Time Out for Rhythm (1941), and Curly looks amazingly like Lou Costello as he flirts.

  Moe, Curly, and Larry are in mythical Moronica doing another of their Hitler spoofs in I’ll Never Heil Again (1941).

  Challenging Duncan Renaldo, Don Barclay, and Jack Lipson for control of the world in I’ll Never Heil Again.

  The Columbia “family” entertains some navy brass in 1941. The Stooges kneel in front with Arthur (“Dagwood”) Lake. Standing are a group of visitors surrounding Brian Aherne (with pipe), Rita Hayworth, Allyn Joslyn, Jinx Falkenburg, Wallis Clark, Evelyn Keyes, Glenn Ford, Claire Trevor, and Janet Blair.

  The Stooges are on safari—with skis, golf clubs, and snowshoes, as well as Monte Collins and Louise Carver—in Some More of Samoa (1941).

  Nancy Carroll drops by Columbia to examine one of Moe Howard’s legendary hooked rugs.

  The boys take a few moments from filming chores for publicity shots.

  The boys’ traditional disputes.

  13

  DOMESTIC WARTIME INTERLUDE

  During World War II, we were all planting victory gardens. I had one of my own in a I small patch of open space that once contained a rose garden in the back of my home in the Toluca Lake area of North Hollywood. I had purchased three building plots covered with walnut and apricot trees. Our architect also had built Bing Crosby’s home nearby. We built on only half of the land, and I held the other half for resale, using this portion for a potato patch until selling it to Raoul Walsh in 1945.

  During construction, I was on tour (as usual) with Larry and Curly. I had returned early in 1940 to find our home completed. It was a charming English manor house—two stories, a three-car garage, swimming pool, badminton court, and formal gardens. Helen and I lived there with the kids until we sold the property in 1955.

  Often in the summer, for the fifteen years we lived there, I would barbecue. I really enjoyed cooking, and sometimes it was for quite a mob. As far as swimming went, I dove into the pool about a dozen times in all those years, and that was to pick up the hairpins from the bottom so they wouldn’t leave rust marks—shades of Annette Kellerman’s divers. Our son, Paul, learned to swim in that pool and later became a letterman at UCLA in swimming and water polo. Joan later was married by that same pool, which we covered at the time with beautiful pond lilies. There wasn’t a frog to be found on those lily pads.

  Moe relaxes at home with son, Paul, in 1944.

  Bellhops Curly, Moe, and Larry await customers and play footsie in Idle Roomers (1944).

  One of their hotel guests is a stray wolfman, played by Duke York.

  Moe hopes his Japanese disguise will help him infiltrate a Nazi gang in No Dough Boys (1944).

  The zanies scrub up for their forthcoming marriages in Gents Without Cents (1944).

  In Gents Without Cents, the Stooges play vaudevillians in benefit shows for the war effort, and even here are given the hook: Curly, Betty Phares, Larry, Lindsay Bourquin, Moe, and Laverne Thompson.

  In 1944, recalling the happy days on the farm in Chatham, I planted a victory garden on the vacant lot next door. All my friends and neighbors knew me as the gardener with the green thumb and the potbelly. I planted potatoes, onions, green peppers, corn, tomatoes, you name it—even parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme.

  While I waited for my crops to grow, I decided to raise chickens. I built two chicken houses to match the architecture of our home: hand-hewn shake roofs, hardwood floors, casement windows. I bought thirty silver-laced Wyandotte hens and two roosters. During this time, my brother Shemp asked me to build him a henhouse, too. He would supply the material, and while I built his henhouse, he went to a poultry farm and picked up a dozen hens. I found out later he had forgotten to buy a rooster.

  Weeks had gone by and my garden was coming along fine. I was busy killing bugs, propping up the tomato plants, cultivating, and weeding. I remember going through the furrows one day in the lettuce bed and finding about five heads were missing. There weren’t any dead plants, just five holes in the ground. I couldn’t figure it out until one early evening, I noticed one of the lettuce heads shaking as though it had the chills; then, before my eyes, that lettuce head disappeared into the ground. Now I knew that the gophers were having a vegetable feast. First I set traps, then I ran the garden hose into the gopher runs and only ended up washing out a good portion of my plants. My cat got a few, and I sat by the hole, hour after hour, rifle in hand. Not only were gophers wiping out my garden, but some human animal was coming around and pulling up my potato plants, stealing my corn, beans, and onions. I even sat up all night waiting to catch the culprits, but all I came up with were a couple of neighborhood kids. One threw a rock and hit me in the head as I cha
sed him. How did he know that I was prone to head injuries? Finally, I turned the case over to the police. I don’t believe I got four meals out of that entire crop, but I certainly was kept busy.

  By now the first batch of chickens that I was raising was ready for the pot. I bought a barrel and some heavy brown paper to line it—and a nice sharp meat cleaver. I then took the chickens out one at a time and tied them up. The first one I placed head down gently on the stump of a nearby apricot tree, raised the cleaver, turned my head away, and came down hard with the blade. Without looking I threw the bird into the barrel, where I heard it flapping around in the bottom. It made me sick to my stomach. I turned to get away from the awful sound, and there at my feet lay the head with one eye winking at me as though it had approved of what I’d done. I dropped the cleaver and ran to the house. Our hired hand finished the job for me, but I was unable to eat my chickens or anyone else’s for months afterward.