Trivia: See "Three Stooges"

Trivia: The "middle stooge" in the various incarnations of the Three Stooges, Larry Fine was most recognizable across his four decades in show business by his eccentric frizzed out hair. He occupied the awkward and often ill-defined position of "middle man," his presence necessary to give a gag body and a boost of action, and to keep it going to its conclusion. As an actor in the group's sketches, he was most often characterized as the wide-eyed nebbish, often nearly as surprised as any by-stander character by the physical comedy (and mayhem) taking place. His most memorable catch-phrases included "Moe, I didn't mean it" (usually followed by a slap from Moe), and "I'm a victim of circumstance" (which was used by Curly on occasion as well).And "victim of circumstance" might define his whole entre to the world of performing. He was born Louis Feinberg in Philadelphia, the son of a jeweler. One day while at his father's shop, an accident took place that resulted in his forearm being badly burned with aqua regia, the acid used to test the purity of gold. The doctor who treated him warned his parents that he would have to do something to strengthen the arm or he would lose it. That led to his taking up the violin, an instrument at which he became so proficient that the family considered sending him to Europe for advanced study, a plan that fell apart with the advent of the First World War He began playing the violin in vaudeville under the name Larry Fine, developing a routine in which he would play from a nearly sitting, knees-bent position, kicking his legs alternately. In 1925, he crossed paths with Moe Howard, who was already working, in tandem with his brother Shemp Howard as part of a comedy act with Ted Healy. He became part of the act and remained when Shemp left, to be replaced by another Howard brother, Curly (aka Jerome). The trio eventually left Healy's employ and struck out on their own as the Three Stooges. Over the course of 25 years and 190 short films at Columbia Pictures, they became one of the longest running movie comedy acts (if not always the most respected or beloved, especially by women) in history. Larry Fine's contribution was a mix of violin virtuosity (on display at various times across their history, from Punch Drunks, Disorder In The Court, and "Violent Is The Word For Curly" in the early/middle 1930s to Sweet And Hot in the late 1950s) and zany cluelessness, mixed with an occasional out-of-left-field ad-lib. Larry usually played the wide-eyed middle-stooge, but occasionally the plots of the trio's movies would allow him some variation on this characterization. In "Sweet And Hot," he plays a small-town boy who has made good as a stage producer, and whose intervention sets the plot (focused on characters played by Muriel Landers and Joe Besser) in motion; and in Rockin' In The Rockies, a full-length feature, as a result of a plot that split Moe Howard's character off from the trio, Larry plays the aggressive "head stooge," and is surprisingly good at it. But he was best known as the clueless middle stooge, often referred to by Moe as "porcupine" because of his hair-style. He kept on with the Stooges into the 1960s, but was forced to retire as his health -- damaged by a series of strokes -- deteriorated later in the decade. He passed away in 1975. He was so familiar, that in 1980, five years after his death, his name still turned up in popular culture. In episode two of the sitcom Bosom Buddies, when women's hotel manager Lucille Benson finds Tom Hanks' Kip Wilson in a female tenant's room, she pulls him by the ear down the hall, causing him to exclaim, "Who am I -- Larry Fine?" And in 1983, SCTV presented "Give 'Em Hell, Larry," a short bit (done as a TV promo spot) in which Joe Flaherty portrays James Whitmore (who had previously enjoyed major success playing President Harry Truman in the one-man show "Give 'Em Hell, Harry") performing the one-man show as Larry Fine -- it was among the funniest 60 seconds of television that season.

Trivia: Accidentally shot himself in the left ankle at age 12. Had his first marriage annulled because his mother disapproved of the union. Modeled famous "woo-woo-woo" sound on a similar gimmick used by comic Hugh Herbert Hated shaving his head because he thought it made him less appealing to women. His last film appearance, Hold That Lion, is the only Three Stooges short to co-star Curly along with his two brothers, Moe and Shemp. Was an avid dog lover, often picking up strays while the Stooges traveled and taking them with him from town to town.

Trivia: Although she starred in scores of B-Westerns opposite the likes of Buck Jones, Buster Crabbe, and Johnny Mack Brown, blonde American actress/singer Christine McIntyre is almost solely remembered for her energetic appearances opposite that zaniest of comedy teams, the Three Stooges. With a Bachelor of Music degree from the Chicago Musical College, McIntyre began her professional career on radio. She entered films around 1937, graduating to leading roles the following year opposite singing cowboy Fred Scott. Appearances in a large number of B-Westerns followed and McIntyre would probably have remained just another prairie flower had she not caught the eye of Columbia producer Hugh McCollom. Not so different at first from the host of pretty girls who decorated the Columbia comedy shorts, McIntyre soon developed into a first-rate comedienne, with an operatic voice to boot. The erudite McCollum persuaded Stooges director Edward Bernds to create Micro-Phonies (1945) for her, with McIntyre was perfectly cast as an aspiring vocalist whose rendition of "The Voice of Spring" is spoiled by the irreverent trio. Micro-Phonies proved one of the year's best Stooges shorts and the die was cast. Alternately playing ingenues and femme fatales, Christine McIntyre was almost regarded as the fourth Stooge and stayed with the department until 1954, longer if one counts her many subsequent appearances via stock footage. "Of all the people I worked with, Christine was one of my favorites," Stooges veteran Emil Sitka said, not long before his death in 1998. Director Edward Bernds concurred: "She was so nice, so sweet; a real joy. She had the rare ability of indulging in the zany antics and still remaining a real lady, which is what she was." The seemingly indefatigable McIntyre also managed to squeeze a series of Johnny Mack Brown Westerns into her busy schedule, but mainstream stardom eluded her and she retired in the mid-'50s to marry J. Donald Wilson, a radio director/producer. Although she relished talking about her many B-Westerns, McIntyre flatly refused to discuss her work with the Stooges.

Trivia: Enjoying one of the longer careers in Hollywood history, Gino Corrado is today best remembered as a stocky bit-part player whose pencil-thin mustache made him the perfect screen barber, maître d', or hotel clerk, roles he would play in both major and Poverty Row films that ranged from Citizen Kane (1941) and Casablanca (1942) to serials such as The Lost City (1935) and, perhaps his best-remembered performance, the Three Stooges short Micro Phonies (1945; he was the bombastic Signor Spumoni).A graduate of his native College of Strada, Corrado finished his education at St. Bede College in Peru, IL, and entered films with D.W. Griffith in the early 1910s, later claiming to have played bit parts in both Birth of a Nation (1915) and Intolerance (1916). By the mid-1910s, he was essaying the "other man" in scores of melodramas, now billed under the less ethnic-sounding name of Eugene Corey. He became Geno Corrado in the 1920s but would work under his real name in literally hundreds of sound films, a career that lasted well into the 1950s and also included live television appearances. In a case of life imitating art, Corrado reportedly supplemented his income by working as a waiter in between acting assignments.

Trivia: Ohio-born Fred Kelsey was so firmly typed as a comedy cop in Hollywood films that in the 1944 MGM cartoon classic Who Killed Who?, animator Tex Avery deliberately designed his detective protagonist to look like Kelsey -- mustache, heavy eyebrows, derby hat and all. In films from 1909, Kelsey started out as a director (frequently billed as" Fred A. Kelcey"), but by the '20s he was well into his established characterization as the beat cop or detective who was forever falling asleep on the job or jumping to the wrong conclusion. Often Kelsey's dialogue was confined to one word: "Sayyyyy....!" He seemed to be busiest at Warner Bros. and Columbia, appearing in fleeting bits at the former studio (butchers, bartenders, house detectives), and enjoying more sizeable roles in the B-films, short subjects and serials at the latter studio. From 1940 through 1943, Kelsey had a continuing role as dim-witted police sergeant Dickens in Columbia's Lone Wolf B-picture series. Seldom given a screen credit, Fred Kelsey was curiously afforded prominent featured billing in 20th Century-Fox's O. Henry's Full House (1952), in which he was barely recognizable as a street-corner Santa Claus.

Trivia: Chances are when a doctor made a house call in a '40s movie, that doctor was portrayed by Sam Flint. Silver-haired, authoritative, and distinguished by an executive-style moustache, Flint entered films in the early '30s after a long stage career. Though his movie roles were usually confined to one or two scenes per picture, Flint was always instantly recognizable in his characterizations of businessmen, bankers, chairmen of the board, politicians, publishers, fathers of the bride--and, as mentioned before, doctors. In addition to his prolific feature-film work, Sam Flint was always welcome in short subjects, appearing in support of everyone from Our Gang to the Three Stooges.

Trivia: A former Barnum circus clown, pint-sized Chester Conklin entered movies at Mack Sennett's Keystone studios in 1913. Sporting a huge mustache to hide his youthful appearance, Conklin was usually cast as "A. Walrus." Legend has it that Conklin helped Keystone novice Charlie Chaplin put together his famous Tramp costume; true or not, it is a fact that Chaplin kept Conklin on year-round payroll for his later productions Modern Times (1936) and The Great Dictator (1940). After leaving Keystone, Conklin remained a popular comedian at the Fox and Sunshine Studios. In the late 1920s, he was teamed with W.C. Fields for a brief series of feature films at Paramount Pictures. In talkies, Conklin mostly appeared in bits in features and supporting parts in 2-reelers; he also showed up in such nostalgic retrospectives as Hollywood Cavalcade (1939) and The Perils of Pauline (1947). At his lowest professional ebb, in the 1950s, Conklin made ends meet as a department-store Santa. In and out of the Motion Picture Country Home and Hospital in the 1960s, Conklin fell in love with another patient, 65-year-old June Gunther. The two eloped (she was Chester's fourth wife) and settled in a modest bungalow in Van Nuys. Chester Conklin showed up in a handful of films in the 1960s; his last appearance, playing a character appropriately named Chester, was in 1966's A Big Hand for the Little Lady.

Trivia: Her pompous Grande Dame ego constantly deflated by having a pie hurled in her face, brunette American comedy actress Symona Boniface became for the Three Stooges what Margaret Dumont was for the Marx Brothers. Surprisingly, Boniface had been a noted stage actress and playwright before the 1929 stock market crash wiped her out financially. Moving to Hollywood, she toiled in anonymity doing bit parts and extra work until signing a stock contract with Columbia Pictures in 1935. A major addition to the studio's thriving short subject department, Boniface popped up in two-reelers all over the place but is today mostly associated with the Stooges, who regularly flattened her haughty demeanor. The quintessential Boniface characters were the snobbish Mrs. Van Bustle of Crash Goes the Hash (1944) and the conceited dowager Mrs. Smythe-Smythe in 1947's Half-Wits Holiday, the latter featuring her being furiously pelted with pies dropped from the ceiling. A talented but much overlooked part of the Stooges legacy, Symona Boniface died less than three years later at the Motion Picture Country House and Hospital in Woodland Hills, CA, but continued, eerily, to figure prominently in Stooges shorts through the middle of the decade due to the generous doses of stock footage added to keep mounting costs down.