Joe DeRita's stepsons, Robert and Earl Benjamin, became the senior management of C3, with Lugosi Jr. serving as an executive board member for several years. The Benjamins later incorporated the company, and C3 is currently the owner of all Three Stooges trademarks and merchandising.
He was replaced in 1946 by Shemp Howard, who was with the Stooges until 1955, when he died. The Three Stooges continued with two other actors, Joe Besser and later Joe De Rita, playing the character Curly Joe. None of the Stooges is alive today, with Moe, the last one, dying in 1975.
Moe wrote in his autobiography that they each received $600 per week (equal to $13,125 today) on a one-year contract with a renewable option; in the Ted Okuda–Edward Watz book The Columbia Comedy Shorts, the Stooges are said to have received $1,000 among them for their first Columbia effort, Woman Haters (1934), and ...
During the filming of Half-Wits' Holiday (1947) in 1946, Curly was felled by a major stroke that rendered him incapacitated, and he was forced to retire. Shemp rejoined the act after a 15-year absence and remained with the Stooges through 78 films until his death from a heart attack in 1955.
The Three Stooges in Color - All Four Public Domain Shorts (1936, 1947 & 1949) [Legend Films]
Did any of the Three Stooges ever get hurt?
Perhaps most famously, while filming 3 Dumb Clucks in 1937, Curly Howard took a vicious hit to the head. In a stunt-heavy scene, henchmen toss Curly down an elevator shaft. The actor smacked into a 2" x 4", which ripped his scalp open. A studio doctor quickly stitched up the gash.
The comedy team proved to be extremely popular, but the Stooges never got rich. They made about 8 films a year, but were paid a flat fee (no royalties) of $60,000 - to be divided by the three. The studio head managed to renew the terms of their contract for 23 years, in which time the Stooges never got a raise.
In fact, all of the Stooges, with exception of Curly, had envious marital track records. Shemp Howard was married for 30 years. Joe Besser was married for 56 years, and Joe DeRita was married for 30 and 26 years respectively, remarrying following his first wife's death.
Joe (Curly Joe) DeRita, 83, the lone survivor of the Three Stooges, died Saturday at the Motion Picture and Television Fund retirement home in Woodland Hills after a bout of pneumonia, a family member said. DeRita joined Moe Howard and Larry Fine in 1959 as a third replacement for the original Curly.
The Fixers was published in 2005, and since then the story that Ted Healy died after being beaten by Wallace Beery, Pat DiCicco and Cubby Broccoli has gained currency — in no small part because Fleming's version of Healy's death has been cited in Wikipedia entries for Ted Healy, the Trocadero and elsewhere.
Los Angeles (Reuter) - A bankruptcy court has confirmed that the heirs of the Three Stooges - Larry Fine, Joe "Curly Joe" DeRita and Moe Howard - own the rights to their work.
This proved unsuccessful, and Curly died eleven days later, on January 18, 1952. He lived the shortest life of the Stooges, dying at the age of 48. He was given a Jewish funeral and was buried at the Western Jewish Institute section of Home of Peace Cemetery in East Los Angeles, California.
For that reason little has been written about one Samuel Horwitz, a.k.a. Shemp Howard, the eldest performing Howard brother of Three Stooges fame. (Moe, Curly and Shemp had two more brothers at home in the Brooklyn enclave of Bensonhurst, though neither professed interest in Stooging as a profession.
Which of The Three Stooges were biological brothers?
The film trio was originally composed of Moe Howard, brother Shemp Howard and longtime friend Larry Fine. Curly Howard replaced brother Shemp, who later returned when Curly suffered a debilitating stroke in 1946.
Louis Feinberg, known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American comedian, actor, violinist, and boxer, who is best known as the smartest member of the comedy act The Three Stooges.
The team's personal life was rocked in 1952 when Curly died; three years later Shemp followed him: dead from a heart attack at 60. Although devastated, Moe and Larry kept the act alive, recruiting comedian Joe Besser as the third Stooge. This, as any Stooge fan will tell you, was the beginning of the end.
