The leader of the raucous, knockabout slapstick group known as The Three Stooges, Moe Howard (born Moses Horwitz) made 190 two-reel shorts as a Stooge, as well as more than 20 feature-length motion pictures. His image as the tough-guy trying to get some order into the lives of the bumbling trio, yet always getting caught up in the mayhem himself, endures to this day through frequent broadcasts of Stooges product and revivals. Howard was bitten with the show biz bug at an early age, although he may not have known quite what his talents were at that time. Blessed with full-bodied hair, he wore it long as a child, but due to barbs from the other lads, he defiantly hacked off his locks himself and inadvertently created the prototype of the bowl-over-the-head cut which eventually became his trademark. At about age 12, Howard began hanging out at the Vitagraph Studios in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn, a few miles from his home, where he would run errands at no charge for such silent screen stars as Maurice Costello. Soon, he was appearing in bit parts in the films made by the team of John Bunny and Flora Finch, as well as Earle Williams, Herbert Rawlinson, and Walter Johnson. A vaudevillian named Ted Healy--then about 25--was also trying to break into films, and he befriended Howard and put him into his act. Howard and Healy were among the slapstick "diving girls" in aquatic star Annette Kellerman's act in 1912.

With his brother Shemp, he formed a singing duo in 1913. The following year, he found employment as part of the summer acting company on Capt. Billy Bryant's showboat, appearing in several melodramas. Between 1917 and 1922, Howard and his brother Shemp appeared in a comedy and musical act on both the RKO and Loew's vaudeville circuits--an almost unheard of event. They achieved this by working the RKO venues in blackface. When they were not honing their act, the pair would back up Ted Healy, doing physical shtick as his "stooges". The Howard brothers and Healy formed a more permanent partnership in 1922 and continued to have success on the vaudeville circuits. When Shemp left the act after his 1925 marriage to attempt a solo career, Larry Fine was brought in as a replacement. Moe Howard also bowed out of the act for a few years, attempting to find success toiling in real estate and retail. Tiring of the civilian life, Howard rejoined the group and appeared on Broadway in "A Night in Venice" (1929) and then headed west to appear as 'Ted Healy and The Racketeers' in "Soup to Nuts" (1930). A contract with MGM followed, but both Healy and Shemp Howard wanted to pursue solo careers and both departed the act in 1932. Howard drafted his younger brother Jerome (ironically called Curly as he had shaved his head). Signed to a contract by the Poverty Row studio of Columbia Pictures, The Three Stooges made 190 two-reel shorts for the studio in a deal that lasted from 1934 to 1958. Moe Howard was the leader of the group both in front of the cameras and off-screen. The Stooges' comedy was particularly physical, involving quick nose bonks, fingers-in-the-eyes, and the like and the trio performed their own stunts, often breaking ribs in the process. While their low-brow antics were frequently condemned by parents, teachers and religious leaders, children loved them. The threesome underwent several personnel changes. Curly Howard suffered a stroke in 1946 and was replaced by brother Shemp until his 1955 death. Joe Besser served as the third 'Stooge' in the final 16 shorts of the Columbia era. After 1959, Curly Joe DeRita rounded out the trio, appearing with Howard and Fine in numerous feature-length films through 1965, when "The Outlaws Is Coming!" ended what had been a 35-year run on celluloid. Howard and The Three Stooges found their shorts sold to TV, where they have aired somewhere on some channel--broadcast or cable--somewhere in the world every day since. The Three Stooges made little product directly for TV, although they did appear on the variety series of such other former vaudevillians as Ed Wynn and Eddie Cantor and, in 1967, appeared as The Three Men in a Tub on an episode of "Off to See the Wizard", an ABC series for children.