Shemp Howard

Howard was born Samuel Horwitz on March 11, 1895 in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, New York (later part of New York City).^[1] He was the third of five Horwitz brothers born to Lithuanian Jewish parents Solomon Horwitz (1872–1943) and Jennie Horwitz (née Gorovitz; 1870–1939). His parents, who were second cousins, were from Kaunas and spoke the Litvak dialect of Yiddish. They married in 1888 and two years later immigrated to New York City. They initially lived with Jennie's brother Julius in Manhattan before eventually moving to Brooklyn, where they started their family. He had two older brothers, Isadore "Irving" (1891–1939) and Benjamin Jacob "Jack" (1893–1976). His two younger brothers were Moses "Moe" (1897–1975) and Jerome "Curly" (1903–1952).^[2]

Howard, who was named Samuel after his mother's grandfather, Shmuel, was known as Sam. However, his mother's thick accent left her unable to articulate the name Sam. Instead she pronounced it as Shem and then Shemp, the latter of which stuck as his nickname.^[2]

Shemp's brother Moe Howard started in show business as a youngster, on stage and in films. Moe and Shemp eventually tried their hands as minstrel-show-style "blackface" comedians with an act they called "Howard and Howard – A Study in Black". At the same time, they worked for a rival vaudeville circuit, without makeup. Shemp was drafted into the U.S. Army during World War I. He was discharged for medical reasons nearly a month after.^[3]

In 1922, Moe teamed up with his boyhood friend Ted Healy in a "roughhouse" act. In 1923, Moe spotted his brother Shemp in the audience and yelled at him from the stage. Quick-witted Shemp yelled right back, and walked up onto the stage. From then on he was part of the act, usually known as "Ted Healy and His Stooges". The Howard brothers were the original Stooges; Larry Fine joined them in 1925.^[4] On stage, Healy sang and told jokes while his three noisy stooges got in his way, and Healy retaliated with physical and verbal abuse. Shemp played a bumbling fireman in the Stooges' first film, Soup to Nuts (1930), the only film where he played one of Healy's gang.^{[citation needed]}

After a disagreement with Healy in August 1930, Moe, Larry and Shemp left to launch their own act, "Howard, Fine & Howard", and joined the RKO vaudeville circuit. They premiered at Los Angeles's Paramount Theatre in August 1930. In 1931, they added "Three Lost Soles" to the act's name and took on Jack Walsh as their straight man. Moe, Larry, and Shemp continued until July 1932, when Ted Healy approached them to team up again for the Shuberts' Broadway revue "Passing Show of 1932", and they accepted the offer. In spite of their past differences, Moe knew an association with the nationally known Healy would provide opportunities the three comics were not getting on their own.^[5]

On August 16, 1932, in a contract dispute, Healy walked out of the Shuberts' revue during rehearsals. Three days later, tired of what he considered Healy's domineering handling of the Stooges' career, Shemp left Healy's act to remain with "Passing Show", which closed in September during roadshow performances and after pan reviews in Detroit and Cincinnati. Shemp regrouped to form his own act and played on the road for a few months. When he split from Healy, Shemp was immediately replaced by his and Moe's younger brother Jerry Howard, known as Curly.^[6]

After leaving Healy's Stooges, Shemp Howard, like many New York City-based performers, found work at the Vitaphone short-subject studio in Brooklyn. Originally playing bit roles in Vitaphone's Roscoe Arbuckle comedies of 1933, showing off his comical appearance, he was given speaking roles and supporting parts almost immediately. He was featured with studio comics Jack Haley, Ben Blue, and Gus Shy; and then co-starred with Harry Gribbon, Daphne Pollard, and Johnnie Berkes. When Roscoe Arbuckle died suddenly in June 1933, Vitaphone needed a new series to replace the popular Arbuckle comedies. Shemp Howard was then promoted to starring comedian.

While in New York he was featured in a two-reel musical comedy for Van Beuren, The Knife of the Party (1934), alongside actors James Fox and Charles Senna as "Shemp Howard and Stooges".^[7] He worked in short subjects exclusively until 1934, when he accepted a character part in the feature film Convention Girl, an independent production filmed in New York and New Jersey. Shemp was featured in a very rare straight role as a blackmailer and suspected murderer.

Shemp preferred to improvise dialogue and jokes, which became his trademark. In late 1935, Vitaphone was licensed to produce two-reel short comedies based on the Joe Palooka comic strip. Shemp was cast as Knobby Walsh, and although only a supporting character, he became the comic focus of the series, with Johnnie Berkes and Lee Weber as his foils. He co-starred in the first seven shorts, released in 1936–1937.

In 1937, he followed his brothers' lead, moved to the West Coast, and landed supporting roles at several studios, mainly Columbia Pictures and Universal. At first he freelanced, lending comic relief to murder mysteries with Charlie Chan and The Thin Man. He worked exclusively at Universal from August 1940 to August 1943, performing with W. C. Fields, Abbott and Costello, Olsen and Johnson, and the Little Tough Guys, among others. He appeared in several Universal B-musicals of the early 1940s: San Antonio Rose (1941) paired him with Lon Chaney Jr. as a faux Abbott and Costello. Other budget musicals included Private Buckaroo (1942), Strictly in the Groove (1942), How's About It? (1943), and Moonlight and Cactus (1944). Most of these projects took advantage of his improvisational skills. When Broadway comedian Frank Fay walked out on a series of feature films teaming him with Billy Gilbert, Gilbert called on his closest friend, Shemp Howard, to replace him in three B-comedy features for Monogram Pictures, filmed in 1944–45. He also played a few serious parts, such as his supporting role in Pittsburgh (1942), starring Marlene Dietrich and John Wayne.^{[citation needed]}

From 1938 to 1940 and again from 1944 to 1946, Howard appeared in Columbia's two-reel comedies, co-starring with Columbia regulars Andy Clyde, The Glove Slingers, El Brendel, and Tom Kennedy. He was given his own starring series in 1944. Meanwhile, his brother Curly's health was declining. Curly had suffered a series of strokes prior to the filming of If a Body Meets a Body (1945), culminating in a medical emergency with Shemp rushing to his brothers' aid. As Variety reported in January 1945: "Vaude dates for the Three Stooges have been canceled because of illnesses of Curley [sic] Howard. Howard was taken ill at the St. Charles Theatre, New Orleans, last week. Shemp Howard subbed for that engagement. Stands in Cleveland, Boston, and Chicago had to be called off."^[8]

While Shemp was starring in his own Columbia shorts, Curly was felled by a debilitating stroke on May 6, 1946. Shemp agreed to fill in for Curly in the Stooge shorts until Curly was well enough to work. In a letter to Curly, Moe wrote: "The first picture in which Shemp operates in your place was very good, but altho [sic] Shemp is a great comic in his own right, Larry and I miss you very much and we are hoping and praying to have you back with us soon now."^[9] Curly never regained his health, and died on January 18, 1952, at the age of 48. Shemp remained with the Stooges for the rest of his life.

Shemp's role as the third Stooge was much different from Curly's. His characterization was more relaxed as opposed to Curly's energetic persona. Unlike Curly, who had many distinct mannerisms, Shemp's most notable characteristic as a Stooge was a high-pitched "bee-bee-bee-bee-bee-bee!" sound, a sort of soft screech done by inhaling. It was a multipurpose effect: he emitted this sound when scared, sleeping (done as a form of snoring), overtly happy, or dazed. It became his trademark sound as the "nyuk nyuk" sound had become Curly's. Because of his established solo career, he was also given opportunities in the films to do some of his own comic routines. "Shemp was an instinctive actor, a great improviser," recalled director Edward Bernds. "Many times when I was directing him, I would actually delay in cutting a scene just to see what he would do. He used to bowl me over with the things he'd dream up."^[10]

During this period, The Three Stooges ventured into live television appearances, beginning on Tuesday, October 19, 1948, with Milton Berle on his Texaco Star Theatre program.

Shemp appeared with Moe and Larry in 77 short subjects. The trio also made the independently produced feature film Gold Raiders (1951) with their Columbia colleagues Edward Bernds and Elwood Ullman.

Shemp suffered a mild stroke in November 1952, but recovered within weeks. The medical episode had no noticeable effect on his remaining films with the Stooges. Historians Ted Okuda and Edward Watz explain: "To cope with skyrocketing production costs, [producer-director] Jules White grew dependent on lifting footage from earlier shorts, then filming a handful of new sequences to comply with the older scenes, using identical sets and as many of the original cast members as possible."^[11] This eased the burden on the Stooges, who could now film their scenes in one or two days instead of four or five.

In September 1925, Shemp married Gertrude Frank (1905–1982). They had one child, Morton Horwitz, born in Brooklyn on February 26, 1927.^[12] Morton died in 1972.

Shemp had several phobias, including of airplanes, automobiles, dogs, and water. According to Moe's autobiography, Shemp was involved in a driving accident as a teenager and never obtained a driver's license.^[13]

On November 22, 1955, Shemp went out with associates Al Winston and Bobby Silverman to a boxing match, one of Shemp's favorite pastimes,^[14] at the Hollywood Legion Stadium. While returning home in a taxi that evening, Shemp died of a massive cerebral hemorrhage (as confirmed by Shemp's daughter-in-law;^[15] not a heart attack, as has been reported) at the age of 60.

Moe's autobiography gives a death date of November 23, 1955, which became the date cited by other accounts. Much of that book was finished posthumously by his daughter and son-in-law, without confirming some of the details that have since come to light. The Los Angeles County Coroner's death certificate states that Shemp Howard died on Tuesday, November 22, 1955, at 11:35 [PM] PST. Howard's obituary appeared in the November 23 afternoon editions of Los Angeles newspapers, citing the death on the night of November 22.^[16]

Shemp is entombed in a crypt within the Corridor of Eternal Life Mausoleum at the Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles. His younger brother Curly is also interred there, in an outdoor tomb in the Western Jewish Institute section, as well as his parents Solomon and Jennie Horwitz and older brother Benjamin "Jack".^{[citation needed]}

Columbia had promised exhibitors eight Three Stooges comedies for 1956, but only four were completed at the time of Shemp Howard's death. To fulfill the contract, producer Jules White manufactured four more shorts "with Shemp" by combining old footage of Howard with new connecting scenes played by a body double (longtime Stooge supporting actor Joe Palma) seen mostly from the back. Palma came to be known by Stooge fans as the "Fake Shemp", a term which director Sam Raimi later coined in reference to any body double replacing an unavailable actor.^[17]

These new releases of 1956 are all based on Stooge comedies of 1949. Rumpus in the Harem borrows from Malice in the Palace; Hot Stuff from Fuelin' Around; Commotion on the Ocean from Dunked in the Deep. The best-received and most technically accomplished of the four is Scheming Schemers (1956), combining new footage with recycled clips from three old Stooge shorts: A Plumbing We Will Go (1940), Half-Wits Holiday (1947) and Vagabond Loafers (1949).^[18]

When it was time to renew the Stooges' contract, Columbia hired comedian Joe Besser to replace Shemp. Columbia discontinued filming new Stooge shorts in December 1957 but continued to release them through June 1959. The Stooge shorts were still in demand for kiddie-matinée shows, and their TV revivals boosted the team's popularity to an all-time high.^[19] Columbia kept the theatrical series going by reissuing Shemp's Stooge shorts until 1968.

In the television biopic The Three Stooges (2000), Shemp Howard was portrayed by John Kassir.

The Three Stooges earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 1560 Vine Street on August 30, 1983.^[20]