Jerome Howard (born Jerome Lester Horwitz; October 22, 1903 – January 18, 1952), better known by his stage name Curly Howard, was an American comedian and actor. He was a member of The Three Stooges comedy team, which also featured his elder brothers Moe and Shemp Howard, as well as vaudevillian Larry Fine. In early shorts, he was billed as "Curley". He was generally considered the most popular and recognizable of the Stooges.
He was known for his high-pitched voice, odd vocal expressions, and non-rhotic dialect ("nyuk-nyuk-nyuk!", "woo-woo-woo!", "soitenly!" [certainly], "I'm a victim of soikemstance" [circumstance], and barking like a dog), as well as his physical comedy (e.g., falling on the ground and pivoting on his shoulder as he "walked" in circular motion), improvisations, and athleticism. An untrained actor, Curly borrowed (and significantly exaggerated) the "woo woo" from "nervous" comedian Hugh Herbert. Curly's unique version of "woo, woo, woo" was firmly established by the time of the Stooges' second Columbia film, Punch Drunks (1934).
Howard left the Three Stooges in May 1946 when a stroke ended his show business career. He suffered serious health problems and several more strokes until his death in 1952 at age 48.
Early life Howard was born Jerome Lester Horwitz in the Bensonhurst section of Brooklyn, New York, on October 22, 1903. Of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry, he was the youngest of the five sons of Jennie (Gorovitz) and Solomon Horwitz. Because he was the youngest, his brothers called him "Babe" (a nickname he retained his entire life). When his elder brother Shemp married Gertrude Frank, who was also nicknamed "Babe", the brothers dubbed him "Curly" to avoid confusion. His full formal Hebrew name was "Yehudah Leib bar Shlomo Natan HaLevi".Curly has a traditional Jewish gravestone with his full formal Hebrew name engraved on it in Hebrew script, directly transliterated from the Hebrew inscription contained there.
A quiet child, Howard rarely caused problems for his parents (something in which older brothers Moe and Shemp excelled). He was a mediocre student, but excelled as an athlete on the school basketball team. He did not graduate high school; instead, he kept himself busy with odd jobs and constantly following his older brothers, whom he idolized. He was also an accomplished ballroom dancer and singer, and regularly turned up at the Triangle Ballroom in Queens, occasionally bumping into actor George Raft.
When Howard was 13, he accidentally shot himself in the left ankle while cleaning a rifle. Moe rushed him to the hospital, saving his life, but the wound resulted in a noticeably thinner left leg and a slight limp. Curly was so afraid of surgery that he never had the limp corrected. While with the Stooges, he developed his famous exaggerated walk to conceal the limp on screen.
Howard was interested in music and comedy, and watched his brothers Shemp and Moe perform as stooges in Ted Healy's vaudeville act. He also liked to hang around backstage, although he never participated in any of the routines.
Career
The Three Stooges
Howard's first on-stage appearance was as a comedy musical conductor in 1928 for the Orville Knapp orchestra; Howard would conduct the ensemble with his arms flailing, unaware that he was losing his pants. Moe later recalled that his performances usually overshadowed those of the band. Though he enjoyed the gig, he watched as brothers Moe and Shemp with partner Larry Fine made it big as some of Ted Healy's "Stooges". Vaudeville star Healy had a very popular stage act, in which he would try to tell jokes or sing, only to have his noisy assistants (or "stooges", in show-business parlance) wander on stage and interrupt or heckle him and cause disturbances from the audience. Meanwhile, Healy and company appeared in their first feature film, Rube Goldberg's Soup to Nuts (1930).
Shemp Howard, however, soon tired of Healy's abrasiveness, bad temper, and alcoholism. In 1932, he was offered a contract at the Vitaphone Studios in Brooklyn. With Shemp gone, Moe suggested that his kid brother Jerry could fill the third-stooge role, and Jerry ran through his Orville Knapp act but Healy was unimpressed: "Is that all he can do? Let his pants fall down? Get me a real comedian, not this amateur. He doesn't even look right!"Morris Feinberg with Bob Davis, Larry, The Stooge in the Middle, San Francisco: Last Gasp Publishing, 1984, p. 101. Healy felt that Jerry, with his thick, chestnut hair and elegant waxed mustache, looked too good for a low comedian. Howard left the room and returned minutes later with his head shaven (the mustache remained very briefly). Moe and Larry started improvising with this new character:
Moe: Hey, Curly!
Larry: What did you call him?
Moe: Curly.
Larry: That's all right. I thought you said girlie!
That exchange sold the act to Healy, and Jerry Horwitz became Curly Howard. In one of the few interviews Curly Howard gave in his lifetime, he complained about the loss of his hair: "I had to shave it off right down to the skin."
In 1934, MGM was building Healy up as a solo comedian in feature films, and Moe saw the writing on the wall. Healy alone was under contract to the studio; his Stooges answered to Healy, who paid each of them only $100 a week. When Healy's lucrative MGM contract was up for renewal on March 6, 1934, Moe proposed that Healy and his stooges should split: "Let's just break up. No hard feelings, no sneaking around. Just a good, clean split."Feinberg and Davis, p. 110. Healy agreed, and left to pursue his own career. That same year, with "The Three Stooges" as the act's new name, they signed to appear in two-reel comedy short subjects for Columbia Pictures. Their third short, Men in Black, was nominated for the "Best Short Subject" Academy Award. It lost to the pioneer Technicolor featurette La Cucaracha, but it did establish The Three Stooges as new comedy stars. It also won the Stooges movie-star salaries: Columbia paid each of them $2,500 per short subject (an exceptional sum; Columbia usually paid $500 to $1,000 per short).Okuda and Watz, p. 49. The Stooges soon became the studio's most popular short-subject attraction, with Curly playing an integral part in the trio's work.
Prime years
Howard's childlike mannerisms and natural comedic charm made him a hit with audiences, particularly children. He was known in the act for having an "indestructible" head, which always won out by breaking anything that assaulted it, including saws and hammers (resulting in his characteristic quip, "Oh, look!" when the item is shown damaged while his head is intact). Although Howard had no formal acting training, his comedic skills were exceptional. Often, directors let the camera roll freely and let Howard improvise. Jules White, in particular, left gaps in the Stooges scripts where he could improvise for several minutes. In later years, White commented: "If we wrote a scene and needed a little something extra, I'd say to Curly, 'Look, we've got a gap to fill this in with a "woo-woo" or some other bit of business', and he never disappointed us."Okuda and Watz, p. 63.
By the time the Stooges hit their peak in the late 1930s, their films had almost become vehicles for Curly Howard's unbridled comic performances. Such Stooges classics as A Plumbing We Will Go (1940), We Want Our Mummy (1938), An Ache in Every Stake (1941), and Cactus Makes Perfect (1942) display his ability to take inanimate objects (food, tools, pipes, etc.) and turn them into ingenious comic props. Moe Howard later confirmed that when Curly forgot his lines, that merely allowed him to improvise on the spot so that the "take" (or scene) could continue uninterrupted:
Howard also developed a set of Brooklyn-accented reactions and expressions that the other Stooges would imitate long after he had left the act:
"Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk" – his trademark laugh, accompanied by manic finger-snapping (snapping your fingers before cupping your hand and slapping the other hand down), often used to amuse himself "Woo, woo, woo!" – cheering used when he was either happy, scared, dazed, or flirting with a "dame" "Hmmm!" – an under-the-breath, high-pitched sound meant to express frustration "Nyahh-ahhh-ahhh!" – a scared reaction, which was most often used by the other Stooges after Curly's departure "Lah-dee" or simply "La, la, laaa" – his singing used when he was acting innocently right before taking out an enemy "Ruff! Ruff!" – a dog bark, used to express anger, showing defiance, barking at an attractive dame, and/or giving an enemy a final push before departing the scene "Ha-cha-cha!" – a take on Jimmy Durante's catchphrase "I'm a victim of soikemstance [circumstance]!" – used to deflect blame from himself "Soitenly!" ("certainly") "I'll moider (murder) you!" "Huff huff huff!" – sharp, huffing exhales either due to excitement or meant to provoke a foe "Ah-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!" – a sort of nonsense, high-pitched yelling that signified being scared or overly excited, which was used during his later years "Indubitably" – an expression used to feign an intelligent response Nervous teeth chattering, which made the sound of a small hammer striking a chisel "Oh! A WISE guy, eh?" – an annoyed response "Oh, look!" – a surprised remark, usually pointing out a saw or hammer which was damaged when it came into contact with his hard head. "Say a few syllables!" – to another (injured) Stooge, usually Moe Occasionally, the Stooges faced a problem that required deep thought, whereupon Curly would bang his head on a wall several times, then shout, "I got it! I got it!" Moe would ask, "What have you got?" Curly's answer: "A terrific headache." Despite his mispronunciations, he had an uncanny ability to instantly spell big words, such as "chrysanthemum", if asked. The gag was that Curly never did it when something important was at stake. In one scene, the Stooges were in a situation where this talent might have landed them a job, but Curly had missed his opportunity. Moe's reaction would be to growl, "Where were you a minute ago?" and then smack him.
On several occasions, Moe Howard was convinced that rising star Lou Costello (a close friend of Shemp's) was stealing material from his brother. Costello was known to acquire prints of the Stooges' films from Columbia Pictures on occasion, presumably to study him. Inevitably, Curly Howard's routines would appear in Abbott and Costello feature films, much to Moe's chagrin.Bob Bernet My Pal Moe web2.airmail.net/willdogs
Curly was the only "third Stooge" who never made a series of his short films without Moe or Larry, either before joining the Stooges or after leaving. Shemp Howard, Joe Besser, and Joe DeRita (referred to during his tenure with the Stooges as "Curly-Joe") each starred as solo comedians in theatrical short subjects.
Illness
Decline By 1944, Curly Howard's energy began to wane. His performances in films such as Idle Roomers (1944) and Booby Dupes (1945) present a Curly whose voice was deeper and his actions were slower. It was believed that Howard suffered the first of several strokes between the production of Idiots Deluxe (October 1944) and If a Body Meets a Body (March 1945). During Curly's illness, producer-director Jules White salvaged an incomplete Curly performance by inserting sequences from an older film; Beer Barrel Polecats (1945) borrowed from So Long Mr. Chumps (1940). Following the completion of the feature-length Rockin' in the Rockies (December 1944), Moe Howard persuaded Curly to seek medical attention. He was admitted to Cottage Hospital in Santa Barbara, California, on January 23, 1945. There, he received diagnoses of severe hypertension, retinal hemorrhage, and obesity, necessitating a period of rest. Consequently, only five short films were released in 1945, a notable reduction from the usual six to eight per year.