Actors - Moe Howard

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	Actors - Moe Howard

Moe Howard (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), born Harry Moses Horwitz in Bensonhurst, New York, a small Jewish community on the outskirts of Brooklyn, the fourth of five children, was the "leader" of the Three Stooges. His distinctive coiffure came about when he was a boy and cut off his curls with a scissors, producing a ragged shape approximating a helmet.

Although his parents were not involved in show business, Moe, his older brother Samuel, (who earned the nickname "Shemp" because of his mother's thick-accented mispronunciation of "Sam") and younger brother Jerome (Curly) all became world famous as part of the Three Stooges.

In school, Moe originally did quite well, aided by a prolific memory, able to quickly memorize anything. In later years, this helped him in his acting career, making memorizing his lines quick and easy. Moe loved reading, as his older brother Jack commented "I had many Horatio Alger books and it was Moe's greatest pleasure to read them. They started his imaginative mind working and gave him ideas by the dozen. I think they were instrumental in putting thoughts into his head to become a person of good character and to become successful."

Moe's largest problem, in his early years, was undoubtedly his hair. Although his "bowl-cut" hair cut is now world famous, as a child his mother refused to cut his beautiful hair, letting it grow to shoulder length. One day, he couldn't take his classmates' teasing any longer, snuck off to a shed in their backyard, and with the help of a friend and a mixing bowl, cut his hair. The hair style stayed with him for the rest of his life.

However, the allure of the stage started calling him, and the more he followed it, the worse he began doing in school. He began playing hooky from school in order to attend theater shows. Moe said, "I used to stand outside the theater knowing the truant officer was looking for me. I would stand there 'til someone came along and then ask them to buy my ticket. It was necessary for an adult to accompany a juvenile into the theatre. When I succeeded I'd give him my ten cents-that's all it cost-and I'd go up to the top of the balcony where I'd put my chin on the rail and watch, spellbound, from the first act to the last. I would usually select the actor I liked the most and follow his performance throughout the play"

Despite his decreasing attendance, Moe graduated from P.S. 163 in Brooklyn, but dropped out of Erasmus High School after only two months, the end of his formal education. To please his parents, he took a class in electric shop, but dropped out after a few months to pursue a career in show business.

He began by running errands for no fee at the Vitagraph Studios in Midwood, Brooklyn (currently the home of the CBS Soap, "As the World Turns"), where he was rewarded with bit parts in movies being made there. Unfortunately, a fire at the studios in 1910 destroyed copies of most of Moe's work done there. In 1909, he met a young man named Ted Healy, who would later become a major milestone in his life. For the time, though, Moe and Ted became good friends. In 1912, they both held a summer job working in Annette Kellerman's aquatic act as diving "girls."

Moe continued his attempts at gaining show business experience, by singing in a bar with his older brother Shemp (until their father put a stop to it), and in 1914 joining a performing troupe on a showboat for the next two summers. In 1922, he joined Ted Healy in a vaudeville routine, Ted Healy and his Racketeers - the group later changed its name to Ted Healy and his Stooges.

On June 7, 1925, Moe Howard married Helen Schonberger, a cousin of magician Harry Houdini, and truly lived happily ever after until his dying day. The next year, Helen pressured Moe to leave the stage, as she was pregnant and wanted Moe nearer to home. Moe attempted to earn a living in a succession of "normal" jobs, none of which were successful. He returned to working with Ted Healy afterwards.

By 1930, Ted Healy and his Stooges were on the verge of "the big time," and made their first movie, "Soup to Nuts" - featuring Ted Healy, and his four stooges - Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Shemp Howard, and Fred Sanborn for MGM. Shemp had not seen eye-to-eye with Healy, and left the group shortly after filming, in order to pursue an individual film career. Moe brought in his baby brother, Jerome ("Jerry" to his friends, "Babe" to Moe) as a replacement - after Healy had him shave off his mustache and hair, he took the stage name of "Curly." After a number of appearances in MGM films with Healy, in 1934, Ted Healy and his Stooges separated, with Healy pursuing his own career, and The Three Stooges (Fred Sanborn having previously left) began making short films at the Columbia film studio, where they stayed until 1957, making 190 films.

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Actors - Moe Howard

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