Shemp Howard

Samuel Horwitz (March 11, 1895 – November 22, 1955), known professionally as Shemp Howard, was an American actor and comedian. He was called "Shemp" because "Sam" came out that way in his mother's thick Litvak accent. He is best known as the third stooge in the Three Stooges, a role he played when the act began in the early 1920s (1923–1932), while it was still associated with Ted Healy and known as "Ted Healy and his Stooges"; and again from 1946 until his death in 1955. Between his times with the Stooges, he had a successful solo career as a film comedian.

Howard was born Samuel Horwitz in Manhattan, New York on March 11, 1895, and raised in Brooklyn. He was the third-born of the five Horwitz brothers, sons of their Lithuanian Jewish parents Solomon Horwitz (1872–1943) and Jennie Horwitz (1870–1939). Irving and Jack were his older brothers; Moses (Moe) and Jerome (Curly) were his younger brothers.

Howard's first name, Shmuel (after his grandfather), was anglicized to Samuel, and his parents and brothers usually called him Sam.

Show business

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.

By 1922, Moe had teamed up with boyhood-friend-turned-vaudeville star Ted Healy in a "roughhouse" act. One day 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 March 1928. 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.

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 on August 28, 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's Broadway revue "Passing Show of 1932," and they readily 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.

On August 16, 1932, in a contract dispute, Healy walked out of the Shuberts's 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. He landed at Brooklyn's Vitaphone Studios for movie appearance opportunities in May 1933. When he split from Healy, Shemp was immediately replaced by his and Moe's younger brother Jerry Howard (known as Curly).

Solo years

Shemp Howard, like many New York-based performers, found work at the Vitaphone studio in Brooklyn. Originally playing bit roles in Vitaphone's Roscoe Arbuckle comedies, showing off his comical appearance, he was given speaking roles and supporting parts almost immediately. He was featured with Vitaphone comics Jack Haley, Ben Blue and Gus Shy, then co-starred with Harry Gribbon, Daphne Pollard, and Johnnie Berkes, and finally starred in his own two-reel comedies. A Gribbon-Howard short, Art Trouble (1934), also features then-unknown James Stewart in his first film role. The independently-produced Convention Girl (1935) featured Shemp in a very rare straight role as a blackmailer and would-be murderer.

Shemp seldom stuck to the script. He livened up scenes with ad-libbed dialogue and wisecracks, which became his trademark. In late 1935, Vitaphone was licensed to produce short comedies based on the "Joe Palooka" comic strip. Shemp was cast as "Knobby Walsh," and though only a supporting character, he became the series's comic focus, with Johnnie Berkes and Lee Weber as his foils. He co-starred in the first seven shorts, released in 1936–1937. Nine of them were produced, the last two done after Shemp's departure from Vitaphone.

Away from Vitaphone, Howard unsuccessfully attempted to lead his own group of "stooges" in the Van Beuren musical comedy short The Knife of the Party. It was a rare failure in an otherwise successful solo career. In 1937 he followed his brothers's lead, moved to the West Coast, and landed supporting-actor roles at several studios, predominantly Columbia Pictures and Universal. He worked exclusively at Universal from August 1940 to August 1943, performing with such comics as W. C. Fields (playing Fields' bartender in the film The Bank Dick, 1940); and with comedy duos Abbott and Costello and Olsen and Johnson. He lent comic relief to Charlie Chan and The Thin Man murder mysteries. He appeared in several Universal B-musicals of the early 1940s, including Private Buckaroo (1942; in which he clowned onstage with The Andrews Sisters during their performance of "Don't Sit Under the Apple Tree"), Strictly in the Groove (1942), How's About It? (1943), Moonlight and Cactus (1944) and San Antonio Rose (1941), in the latter of which he was paired with Lon Chaney, Jr. as a faux Abbott and Costello. 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.

The Three Stooges: 1946–1955

During 1938–1940 and 1944–1946, 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. He was working for Columbia in this capacity when his brother Curly was felled by a debilitating stroke on May 6, 1946. Curly had already suffered a series of strokes prior to the filming of If a Body Meets a Body, 1945, and in January 1945, Shemp filled in for Curly at a week-long appearance at the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans.

Shemp agreed to fill in for Curly in Columbia's popular Stooge shorts, knowing that if he refused, Moe and Larry would be out of work. He intended to stay only until Curly recovered; but as Curly's condition worsened, it became apparent that Shemp's association with the Stooges would be permanent. Curly died on January 18, 1952, at the age of 48.

Shemp's role as the third Stooge was much different from Curly's. While he could still roll with the punches in response to Moe's slapstick abuse, he was more of a laid-back dimwit as opposed to Curly's energetic man-child persona. And 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.

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 73 short subjects—or 77, counting four that were made after Shemp's death by incorporating stock footage. The trio also made the feature film Gold Raiders (1951). 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, many of which were remakes of earlier films that also used recycled footage to reduce costs.

In September 1925, Shemp married Gertrude Frank, a fellow New Yorker. They had one child, Morton (February 26, 1927 – January 13, 1972).

Shemp used his somewhat homely appearance for comic effect, often mugging grotesquely or allowing his hair to fall in disarray. He even played along with a publicity stunt that named him "The Ugliest Man in Hollywood". ("I'm hideous," he explained to reporters.) Notoriously phobic, his fears included 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.

On November 22, 1955, Howard went out with associates Al Winston and Bobby Silverman to a boxing match (one of Howard's favorite pastimes) at the Hollywood Legion Stadium at North El Centro and Selma Avenues, one block above the Hollywood Palladium. While returning home in a taxi that evening, Howard died of a sudden massive heart attack, at the age of 60. He had just told a joke and was leaning back, lighting a cigar, when he suddenly slumped over on Al Winston's lap, accidentally burning Al with the cigar. Al thought Howard was playing a joke, since he'd been laughing moments earlier, but he was dead.

Moe's autobiography gives a death date of November 23, 1955, as do most subsequent accounts, because of Moe's book. But much of that book was finished posthumously by his daughter and son-in-law, and some details were confused. 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 also appeared in the November 23 afternoon editions of Los Angeles newspapers, citing the death on the night of November 22. A different account is offered by former daughter-in-law Geri Greenbaum, who says Howard's death happened just as their taxi came over the rise on Barham Boulevard, heading to Howard's Toluca Lake home.

Shemp Howard was interred in a crypt in the Indoor 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".

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

Columbia had promised exhibitors eight Three Stooges comedies for 1956, but only four were completed at the time of Howard's death. To fulfill the contract, producer Jules White manufactured four more shorts by reusing old footage of Howard and filming new connecting scenes with a double, longtime Stooge supporting actor Joe Palma, who is seen mostly from the back.

Palma came to be known by Stooge fans as the "Fake Shemp". Later, director Sam Raimi and his childhood friend actor Bruce Campbell referred to anyone playing body doubles or stand-ins in other films as "Shemp" or "a Fake Shemp", in reference to these postmortem Stooge scenes.

The re-edited films range from clever to blatantly patchy, and are often dismissed as second-rate. Rumpus in the Harem borrows from Malice in the Palace, Hot Stuff from Fuelin' Around, and Commotion on the Ocean from Dunked in the Deep (all originals released 1949; all re-edits released 1956). The best-received and most technically accomplished is Scheming Schemers (again 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).

When it was time to renew the Stooges's contract, Columbia hired comedian Joe Besser to replace Shemp. Columbia discontinued new Stooge comedies in June 1959, but kept the series going into the 1960s by reissuing Shemp's Stooge shorts to theaters, allowing Shemp Howard to remain a popular star for more than a decade after he died.

In Mel Gibson's television biopic film, The Three Stooges (2000), Shemp Howard was portrayed by 'fake Shemp' Johnny Kassir, who donned a floppy, straight-haired wig.