Curly Howard

Curly Howard (real name Jerome Lester Horwitz) (October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), was one of the Three Stooges, along with brothers Moe Howard and Shemp Howard, and Larry Fine. He is well known for his high-pitched voice, laugh (commonly rendered as "Nyuk! Nyuk! Nyuk!"), and yell (commonly rendered as "Woo! Woo! Woo!").

Early life

Curly was born in Bath Beach, a summer resort in a section of Brooklyn, New York. He was the fifth and youngest of the five Horwitz brothers and of Levite and Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. Because he was youngest, his brothers called Curly "Babe" to tease him. The nickname stuck with him all his life.

When Curly was twelve, he shot himself in the ankle while playing with a rifle. He suffered a slight limp afterwards, and was so frightened of surgery that he never got it fixed. While with the Stooges, he developed his famous exaggerated walk to mask the limp on screen.

Sometime in his late teens (according to Curly: The Illustrated Biography Of The Superstooge, written by his neice, Joan Howard Maurer and published in 1985), Curly married a young girl, whose name, the book claimed, "remains a mystery to this day." His mother, Jennie Horwitz, was against the idea of Curly's marrying at such a young age and had the marriage annulled. However, in 1995, Bill Cappello (a member of the Three Stooges Fan Club) researched the matter and reported in The Three Stooges Journal that Curly had married his first wife, Julia Rosenthal, in 1930, when Curly was 27 years old. They later divorced (the marriage was not annulled as stated in other sources).

Only a fair student, Curly never graduated from high school. He was more interested in musicals and comedy and would watch his brothers Shemp and Moe perform as stooges in Ted Healy's vaudeville act. Curly liked to hang around backstage and get sandwiches for all of the performers in the show, though he never participated in any of the routines.

In 1928, Curly's break onto the stage was as a comedy musical conductor for the Orville Knapp Band. Moe later recalled that Curly's performances usually overshadowed those of the band.

The Three Stooges

In 1930, Ted Healy and the Stooges (now with Larry Fine) appeared in their first feature film, Soup to Nuts. Shemp left the act in 1932 for a career in feature films and Moe suggested Curly fill the role of the third stooge. Ted took one look at Curly and, with his long black locks and facial hair, stated he was not a character like Moe and Larry, so Curly left the room and returned moments later with a shaved head and face. The character of Curly was born and he joined the act in 1932.

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Curly models a girdle for Moe and Larry in A-Plumbing We Will Go (1940). This short was reportedly Curly's favorite film.

In 1934, the Stooges split with Ted Healy, because of his alcoholism and abrasiveness, and renamed their act the Three Stooges. The same year, they signed on to appear in two-reel comedy short subjects for Columbia Pictures at just a few hundred dollars a week. The Stooges went on to star in 190 film short subjects over the next twenty-three years, the longest such series in history.

Success, however, destroyed Curly. He began to drink heavily, feeling that his shaven head robbed him of his sex appeal. Curly wore a hat in public to confirm an image of masculinity, saying he felt like a little kid with his hair shaved off.

Curly also had difficulties managing his finances, often spending his money on wine, food, women, homes, cars, and dogs (he was "mad about dogs"). Since income from his successful career was carelessly spent, Curly was often left near the poverty level. Moe eventually handled all of Curly's affairs, helped him manage his money, and even completed his income tax returns.

On June 7, 1937, he married Elaine Ackerman, who gave birth to Curly's first child, Marilyn, in 1938. In 1940 Elaine filed for divorce. Afterwards, he gained a tremendous amount of weight and his blood pressure soared. In 1945, he was diagnosed as having extreme hypertension, a retinal hemorrhage, and obesity.

Also in 1945, Curly met and married Marion Buxbaum. Moe urged Curly into the marriage, hoping it would improve his health. The marriage, however, was unhappy and friends and family felt Buxbaum was using Curly for his money. After only three months, the couple separated and began a bitter divorce proceeding, ending in July 1946.

After the Stooges

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Curly snoring it up during his cameo in Hold That Lion!

On May 6, 1946, Curly suffered a stroke during the filming of his 97th Three Stooges comedy, Half-Wits Holiday (1947). Curly completed every scene, except for the pie-fight scene which occurred at the end of the film. Moe Howard later recalled in his autobiography that director Jules White called for Curly, but there was no answer. Moe then went looking for his brother, only to find him sitting with his head slumped over on his shoulder. Curly was crying profusely but unable to speak, and Moe knew instantly that his brother had suffered a severe stroke. Curly, accompanied by Moe, was rushed to the hospital, while White quietly scrambled to shoot the final scene around Curly's absence.[1].

It had been fairly obvious to all involved that Curly's last dozen film performances were subpar, due to the Stooge having suffered several minor strokes since early 1945. His energy had been sapped, and several shorts (most notably Three Loan Wolves and Rhythm and Weep, both 1946) clearly display Curly's devastating lack of energy. Adding insult to injury, Columbia boss Harry Cohn refused to allow Curly time off to recover and rest. Instead, the superstooge was forced to work, leading up to the stroke he suffered while filming Half-Wits Holiday.

Curly had to leave the team to recuperate from his illness. He did make one brief cameo appearance (doing his "Rrrowf! Rrrowf!" routine) in the third film after brother Shemp returned to the trio, Hold That Lion! (1947), in an effort to boost Curly's morale. It was the only film that contained all three Howard brothers (Moe, Shemp, and Curly) simultaneously. A part was written for Curly in Malice in the Palace—a lobby card photo for this film was shot, featuring an emaciated and mustachioed Curly as a chef—but he did not appear in the short (Larry portrayed the chef character). Curly's cameo appearance from Hold that Lion was recycled in the 1953 remake Booty and the Beast, one year after Curly had died.

Still not fully recovered from his stroke, Curly met a thrice-married widow of thirty-two, Valerie Newman, whom he married on July 31, 1947. A friend later recalled, "Valerie was the only decent thing that happened to Curly and the only one that really cared about him." Although his health worsened after the marriage, Valerie gave birth to a daughter, Curly's second child, Janie, in 1948. Janie currently resides with her family in Maryland.

In 1949, Curly's health took a severe turn for the worse when he suffered his second stroke which left him partially paralyzed. He was confined to a wheelchair and was fed boiled rice and apples as part of his diet (doctors believed that reducing his weight would help reduce the risk of having another stroke). As a result, Curly's weight dropped dramatically, leaving his body almost resembling a skeleton. His physical and mental condition deteriorated and eventually Curly had to be admitted to a series of nursing homes and hospitals. On January 18, 1952, Curly died at the age of 48 in San Gabriel, California.

Legacy

Though well-known in their heyday, the Three Stooges' height in popularity came when their shorts were broadcast on television starting in 1959, introducing them to a new generation of fans. The shorts are still shown on U.S. television on the Rich Koz's syndicated "Stooge-A-Palooza" show which is broadcast from Chicago's WCIU on Saturday evenings.

Today, Curly is considered by many Stooge fans to be their favorite of the Three Stooges. Even Larry said Curly was his favorite Stooge. In a 1973 interview, Larry recalled, "Personally, I thought Curly was the greatest because he was a natural comedian who had no formal training. Whatever he did he made up on the spur of the moment. When we lost Curly, we took a hit."

In 2000, long-time stooge fan Mel Gibson produced a TV-movie for ABC about the life and careers of the Stooges. (In an interview promoting the film, Gibson revealed that Curly was his favorite stooge.[2]) In the film, Curly was played by Michael Chiklis.

Trivia

Early on, his name appeared as "Curley" on marquees.

He never made a public or on-camera appearance out of character, which means he never used his real voice anywhere except once when he played his father with long sideburns marrying the golddigger (3 Dumb Clucks).

At times Curly would thwart Moe's poke in the eyes, with a defense called the "Curly Maneuver". To employ this maneuver, Curly would position his hand in front of the bridge of his nose, splitting the two fingers with the hand and stopping them short of his eyeballs.

Curly's movements were said to have inspired Disney animators for some of the choreography in the mushroom dance in Fantasia.

Curly purchased a house from child star Sabu and later sold it to Joan Leslie. Curly also bought a lot next door to Moe Howard's palatial home on Toluca Lake, expecting to build on it, but never did. It was eventually sold to film director Raoul Walsh.

The 1984 song "The Curly Shuffle," recorded by Jump N'The Saddle Band, expressed admiration for the Stooges and included several Curly imitations in the chorus.

The cartoon character Jabberjaw is based heavily on Curly, including an imitation of Curly's voice, his "woo-woo" sound when alarmed, and the famous "nyuk-nyuk" laugh.

Doctor Zoidberg from the Futurama TV show makes Curly's trademark "Woo, woo, woo" sound when running away from trouble (sometimes after squirting ink).

On the MTV show Celebrity Deathmatch, Curly is the only survivor of a fight between The Three Stooges and The Three Tenors, and is thus declared the winner.

According to the Hebrew inscription on his gravestone, his full Hebrew name was "Yehudah Lev son of Shelomo Natan the Levite".

A Far Side cartoon showed Curly's mother getting an ultrasound while she was pregnant with Curly. The ultrasound showed him spinning around and saying "woo! woo! woo!".

The school in the Captain Underpants books is named "Jerome Horwitz Elementary School" in his honor.

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