Moe Howard..

Moe, the Stooge with the spittoon haircut, was born Harry Moses Horwitz in Bensonhurst, New York, a Jewish section of Brooklyn.  He was the fourth of five children, all boys, born to Solomon and Jennie Horwitz.  His two oldest brothers, Irving and Jack, were the only two Horwitz children that did not enter show business.  Irving was the only one not to Americanize his name by changing it to Howard. Moe was an extremely smart child, with a great ability to memorize quickly.  This ability, of course, was of great value to him later in life when he became an actor.  Moe was very fond of the theatre, and would often skip school to catch shows during the week.  This love of the theatre, however, led to poor performance in school, and Moe eventually dropped out, never receiving his high school diploma. It was in 1909 that Moe met Ted Healy for the first time.  They became really close friends and even got a job together in the summer of 1912 as diving "girls" in an aquatic act. Moe got his first acting job in 1914 when he got a job with a performing troupe aboard Capt. Billy Bryant's showboat "Sunflower."  He did this for two summers before finally teaming up with his older brother Shemp in 1916 in a blackface act.  Moe and Shemp toured the country for several years.  At one point, in 1917, the two were in two theatre circuits at the same time, Loew's and RKO's.  So, Moe and Shemp performed a blackface act for RKO and a whiteface act for Loew's. It was in 1922 that Moe got his big break.  His boyhood friend, Ted Healy called Moe and Shemp to join him on stage one night when his regularly scheduled act walked out on him.  Moe, Shemp, and Ted performed a hilarious routine, completely ad-libbed, that the audience just ate up.  This was the beginning of Moe's career as a stooge.  In 1925, Moe's personal life changed dramatically.  He married Helen Schonberger.  In late 1926, Helen urged Moe to leave show-business in order to spend more time with her.  She was expecting a baby.  So, Moe left Ted and the act and took a job in real estate.  His first child, a daughter named Joan, was born in 1927.  He later had a son as well, Paul, born in 1935. After two years away from the business, Moe decided to rejoin Ted in 1929 when they had an opportunity to appear in a broadway show called "A Night in Venice."  By this time there were three stooges with Ted: Moe, Shemp, and Larry Fine.  The three would stay with Ted Healy for a year, then leave him in 1930, only to rejoin him in 1932.  However, some of Healy's dirty dealings became too much for Shemp to handle.  So, he left the team in 1932, paving the way for the youngest Howard brother, Jerome to enter the act.  Jerome, using the name Curly, did just that, and the stooges were on their way to stardom. Columbia offered the stooges a contract in 1934, without Ted Healy. The boys accepted, and joined Columbia with the name "The Three Stooges."  This was the first time they went by this name.  Minus Ted Healy, for good this time, Moe became the leader of the group, on and off the screen.  He handled all of the Stooges' business and contract negotiations, while Larry and Curly simply took their checks each month and enjoyed them to their fullest.  Moe remained the leader of the Stooges until their demise in the early seventies.   On screen, Moe was a bully, constantly hitting and shoving the other two Stooges around.  Off screen, however, Moe was very kind-hearted and sentimental.  He was an excellent business man who knew how to save money, unlike his two partners.  He had a wide range of interests, including cooking, travelling, and gardening.  He was a very family-oriented man, constantly making sure that his family's every wish granted to its fullest. Moe's favorite song was "How Deep Is the Ocean."  His favorite Three Stooges short was "You Nazty Spy"  (1940), and his favorite Stooges feature film was "The Outlaws is Coming" (1965). Moe Howard died on May 4, 1975 of lung cancer, just prior to his 78th birthday.  As Moe's son-in-law, Norman Maurer, remarked after the comedian's death, "When Moe died, the act died with him."  Moe will always be remembered as the greatest and funniest bully in the history of Hollywood.