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: Brooklyn-born comedian Shemp Howard was the oldest of five sons of a Lithuanian immigrant couple. Shemp was a prankish kid who used humor to obscure the fact that he lived in mortal fear of practically everything, from automobiles to oceans. It is fortunate that he chose show business as profession, since he proved time and again to be utterly incapable of succeeding in any other line of work. Following the lead of his younger brother Moe, Shemp went into vaudeville with a blackface act. In 1922, Shemp and Moe were hired as stooges for comedian Ted Healy; three years later, Larry Fine joined the act, which graduated from vaudeville to Broadway. Since Healy liked his stooges to look as ridiculous as possible, he insisted that they each adopt an eccentric hairstyle. Shemp chose to part his hair down the middle and slick it into place with vaseline, a style he'd retain for the rest of his career. Shemp struck out on his own in 1932. Throughout the '30s, he was starred or featured in dozens of Vitaphone 2-reel comedies, where his growly delivery of lines, his incessant adlibbing and his homely "kisser" never failed to elicit loud laughter. In 1940, he signed a contract with Universal pictures, appearing in such films as Hellzapoppin' (1941), Pittsburgh (1942) and Arabian Nights (1942). Shemp was invariably hilarious in these films -- too hilarious for the tastes of such comedians as W.C. Fields and Lou Costello, who insisted that many of Shemp's best bits be consigned to the cutting room floor. While headlining his own series of Columbia 2-reelers in 1946, Shemp was asked by his brother Moe and Larry Fine to rejoin their old act, which by now had gained fame as The Three Stooges. Shemp's replacement in the act, his kid brother Curly, had suffered a stroke, and a new "patsy" was required to act as the target of Moe's physical assaults. Shemp remained with the Three Stooges from 1946 thorugh 1955, appearing in two-reelers, stage presentations, TV guest spots, and one feature film (Gold Raiders [1951]). Shemp Howard died of a sudden heart attack at the age of 60; even after his death, Shemp "starred" in four Three Stooges comedies, courtesy of stock footage from earlier films and a stand-in by the name of Joe Palma.

Trivia: Benny Rubin inaugurated his career as a 14-year-old tap dancer in his hometown of Boston. He worked in stock and on showboats during the WWI years, breaking into burlesque as a dialect comedian in 1918. A vaudeville headliner throughout the 1920s, Rubin seemed a sure bet for movie stardom when he was signed by MGM in 1927. According to one source, however, the powers-that-be decided that Rubin looked "too Jewish" for movies. Nonetheless, he entered films during the talking era, starring in a brace of Tiffany Studios musicals -- Sunny Skies and Hot Curves, both filmed in 1930 -- before freelancing as a character actor. Though he was top-billed in a handful of two-reelers and was given prominent screen credit as one the scenarists for the Wheeler and Woolsey films Off Again -- On Again (1937) and High Flyers (1937), Rubin had to settle for bits and minor roles as a feature-film actor. He would later claim that his fall from grace was due to his bad temper and his chronic gambling. Far more successful on radio, Rubin became one of the most prominent members of Jack Benny's "stock company," usually playing an obnoxious information desk attendant ("I dunno! I dunno! I dunno!). During the 1950s and 1960s, Rubin worked steadily in TV programs, feature films, and two-reel comedies; he also worked in animated cartoons and TV commercials as a voice-over artist, truthfully proclaiming that he could convincingly convey any foreign accent -- "except Arabian." In 1973, Rubin produced a self-published, self-serving autobiography, Come Backstage With Me, in which he made innumerable specious claims about his show biz accomplishments; for example, he stated that it was he who advised fledging film director Orson Welles to hire cameraman Gregg Toland for the 1941 classic Citizen Kane (in truth, Rubin's contribution to the film was confined to a one-scene bit as a typesetter, which was cut from the final release print). Benny Rubin's final appearance was in the TV miniseries Glitter.

Trivia: American character actor Frank Sully worked as a vaudeville and Broadway comedian before drifting into movies in 1935. Often typecast as musclebound, doltish characters, the curly-haired, lantern-jawed Sully was seen in a steady stream of hillbilly, GI and deputy sheriff roles throughout the '40s and '50s. He was prominently cast as Noah in John Ford's memorable drama The Grapes of Wrath (1940), one of the few times he essayed a non-comic role. During the '50s, Sully accepted a number of uncredited roles in such westerns as Silver Lode (1954) and was a member in good standing of the Columbia Pictures 2-reel "stock company," appearing as tough waiters, murderous crooks and jealous boyfriends in several short comedies, including those of the Three Stooges (Fling in the Ring, A Merry Mix-Up etc.) Frank Sully's last screen appearance was a bit as a bartender in Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl (1968).

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.