Eye pokes and rabbit holes with Three Stooges connoisseur Gary Lassin

The Stoogeum curator matter-of-factly breaks down ‘A Tour De Farce: The Complete History of the Three Stooges on the Road,’ his colossal coffee table tome honoring the screwball 1923–1974 exploits of Curly Howard, Larry Fine, Moe Howard, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser, and Curly Joe DeRita

If The Rolling Stones have their 1989 Steel Wheels tour dates widely available on the back of a T-shirt, what’s stopping the Three Stooges? In actuality, the most vital elements of the knee-slapping comedy team had been dead for almost a quarter century and last performed together during an inconsequential minor league baseball tournament in Tucson on July 23, 1969. The revelation nonetheless took root as Gary Lassin waited in line and spotted the commemorative shirt in the late ’90s.

The future archivist’s fascination for the Jewish funnymen has existed since he was a Baby Boomer kid with a mere three TV channels for companionship near Philadelphia. Seeing Curly go bananas whenever he heard “Pop Goes the Weasel” in Punch Drunks and bicycling over to the Plymouth Meeting cinema to catch the Stooges’ final full-length movie, The Outlaws Is Coming!, sealed Lassin’s fandom.

Lassin obtained eternal love in the form of Larry Fine’s niece Robin Solomon. Fine’s younger brother Morris “Moe” Feinberg was still alive when Lassin married into the family in 1981. Despite a heart condition, Feinberg remained in charge of the Three Stooges Fan Club and wrote a bimonthly newsletter read by over 2,000 members worldwide. Feinberg mentored Lassin, freely passing down invaluable nuggets about the act’s 50-year history. No one else in the family shared Feinberg’s passion. Lassin accepted the mantle and took over the fan club upon Feinberg’s demise five years later.

Solomon’s health nosedived at the turn of the century. Undergoing a “risky, complex operation” for cancer, Lassin’s wife fully recovered. During the ordeal her husband surveyed his legacy and decided to find a building suitable to display his burgeoning collection of Stooge memorabilia. With sufficient income thanks to being the vice president of finance for the Harriet Carter mail-order gift catalog company, Lassin’s Stoogeum is poised to salute its 20th anniversary this spring. Situated in Ambler, Pennsylvania, the three-story, 10,000 square foot building accommodates an 85-seat theater, research library and archive, and film vault.

Multifarious books remember the Stooges, but none chronicled their travels, tour stops, and life beyond Tinseltown until Lassin self-published the 765-page A Tour De Farce: The Complete History of the Three Stooges on the Road in 2023. Supplemented by 1,500 black and white images in startling resolution, A Tour De Farce illustrates how the quintessential buffoons mastered their craft and honed their comedic timing through personal appearances. That’s why the Stooges’ Columbia short subjects are held in such high esteem and rack up streaming counts exceeding the oeuvres of Laurel & Hardy, the Marx Brothers, Abbott & Costello, Hope and Crosby, and Martin & Lewis.

The Gary Lassin Interview

What Three Stooges short[s] left an indelible impression upon you as a kid?

I grew up in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia founded by Quakers around the beginning of time. Punch Drunks [the trio’s second short for Columbia, 1934] was always my favorite when it came on TV after I got home from elementary school. I loved Curly turning into Superman every time he heard that weasel tune.

Did you watch any of the Stooges’ full-length films during their original theatrical run?

The only one I remember seeing in a theater was The Outlaws Is Coming! I was 10 years old when the Stooges’ final movie was released in 1965. There were probably only a few dozen kids and no adults at the theater because it was a Saturday matinee that us neighborhood kids would ride our bikes to. I like Outlaws, think it holds up fine compared to their other feature films, and love the concept of turning the local kiddie show hosts who introduced the Stooges’ classic shorts into famous Wild West villains.

Did you have any close calls as far as seeing the Stooges in a venue?

No. As a kid I never even knew that they made personal appearances.

What Stooges dates do you wish you could have been in the audience to enjoy?

Curly’s first appearance as one of Ted Healy’s Racketeers [Aug. 27-Sept. 2, 1932, Cleveland’s Palace Theater]. It would be interesting to see how Moe and Larry worked him into the act after Shemp’s abrupt departure for a solo career. And can you imagine the audience’s reaction to Big Boy, Gus and Stanley Stevens’ trained, 700-pound wrestling bear, in Healy’s troupe?!

The Stooges’ appearance at Philadelphia’s Municipal Stadium [later renamed John F. Kennedy Stadium] in front of 90,000 people for the annual Hero Scholarship Fund Thrill Show benefit on Sept. 11, 1959, was not only the largest crowd ever to see the Boys but also a venue that I attended many times as a youth. I saw Army vs. Navy football matches, Peter Frampton, and Yes in concert before the stadium was demolished.

I would have loved to see them at a small venue like the Latin Casino in Philadelphia or Holiday House in Monroeville, Pennsylvania [the Stooges played both during Curly Joe’s first year aboard], and when they performed as the “Two Stooges” upon the death of Larry’s 25-year-old son John in a car accident [on Nov. 16, 1961, while the Boys were midway through their week-long engagement with the annual Ararat Shrine Circus held in the Kansas City Municipal Auditorium] and then again when Larry’s 63-year-old wife Mabel succumbed to a heart attack on Memorial Day 1967 [Moe and Curly Joe completed their shows that day at Rocky Point, an amusement park in Warwick, Rhode Island, and honored a few more commitments at Massachusetts shopping malls and Agawam’s Riverside Park through June 4].

Did you write or attempt to contact Moe, Larry, Joe, or Curly Joe?

Moe and Larry had been dead for over 10 years by the time I got seriously involved with the Stooges in 1986 after Larry’s brother Moe Feinberg passed away and I took over his Three Stooges Fan Club [Lassin’s wife Robin also happens to be the granddaughter of Feinberg].

I corresponded a few times with Besser and DeRita before they passed. They were equally friendly but most of my correspondence with Curly Joe was through his wife Jean who wrote letters for him during his final years.

Which Stooge most yearned to be on the road doing comedy in front of audiences?

Tough question. As between the basic trio of Moe, Larry, and Curly, I’d say Larry. Both he and Moe clearly wanted to entertain from a young age, but Moe wanted to be a serious actor, not a comic. Curly on the other hand never really showed any inclination toward acting or entertaining until he joined up with Ted Healy and his troupe.

How long did the Stooges’ comedy set last?

The Stooges were typically on stage for just 10 — 15 minutes, but this could vary depending on the nature of the show, the other acts involved, etc. Usually the act was done in a single chunk, but sometimes they’d do a series of two to three-minute routines spaced throughout the show.

One possibility for the Stooges’ lengthiest show is their Sept. 17, 1961, opening night show at the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota. Peter Palmer and his orchestra arrived late, throwing off rehearsals and the timing of the show. The Stooges finished the show to rousing applause, but when they started offstage they were sent back out because they had contracted for a two-hour show. The Boys were then forced to ad-lib for 10 minutes or so.

Shemp, Moe, and Curly’s eldest brother Irving Horwitz and mother Jennie Horwitz both died during the team’s three-month tenure with George White’s Scandals of 1939 Broadway revue. How were the Stooges able to bounce back so rapidly with these dual personal blows without missing a show, and what happened to Jennie and Irving?

The Stooges lived the Hollywood mantra — “The Show Must Go On” — and so they soldiered on. We do not have death certificates for Jennie or Irving and don’t know the official cause of their respective deaths.

Did George White’s Scandals of 1939 open doors for the Boys career-wise?

I don’t think it opened any doors for the Stooges, but it did help free them from working with a straight man on tour. Up until Scandals, Eddie Laughton had traveled everywhere with them for the preceding three to four years. But in Scandals they worked without him. That empowered them to travel on their own because once they left the revue, they never traveled with a straight man again [“Never…have I been in such a lion fight!,” Eddie Laughton pricelessly exclaims in the Stooges’ 1941 short In the Sweet Pie and Pie].

Pre-Scandals, why did the Stooges feel their humor couldn’t succeed on the road without a straight man?

Probably because they had never done so before and just weren’t ready to carry the load on their own. During the Ted Healy years they always had Healy to carry the load.

Since Curly’s health impacted the Stooges’ bookings outside Los Angeles, should Shemp have substituted for Curly on the road in addition to the brief Jan. 18–24, 1945, dates at the St. Charles Theatre in New Orleans?

It’s hard to say if Shemp should have filled in more for Curly. There may have been a disconnect for an audience expecting to see Curly but actually getting Shemp. Moe and Larry said nothing about it on-the-record, and there are not enough details about the audience reception in New Orleans to make a judgment. The fact that they did not do any more road trips with Shemp is very telling.

Is there proof that Curly attended a Stooges gig after his May 1946 stroke?

I don’t have any evidence that Curly saw the Stooges on the road after his stroke. That doesn’t mean he didn’t — there’s just no corroborating evidence.

What’s a common misperception about Curly off-stage?

Truthfully, I’m not sure we really know enough about Curly’s off-screen persona to be able to make accurate judgements about what he was or wasn’t like. He never did any serious interviews before his 1952 passing at age 48 that might reveal his true character. Just about everything we think we know about Curly are second-hand observations made by a variety of relatives.

Whenever “favorite Stooge” contests are held, Curly gets twice as many votes as the others combined. Moe and Larry are usually pretty close when it comes to second place. This has remained pretty constant since I took over the fan club in 1986.

How did you learn that the Stooges’ sole firing occurred on Oct. 1, 1953, the first night of their intended two-week residency at the Fabulous Flamingo casino in Las Vegas?

It actually took awhile to flesh out exactly what happened because I was trying to figure it out back in the days before old newspapers were available online. I had evidence that the Stooges were set to do the Flamingo shows but had conflicting reports from Variety as to what happened.

So I went to the Library of Congress to do more research but unfortunately the microfilm from the Las Vegas Review newspaper for the period that the Stooges were supposed to be there was missing! Things went unresolved for a few years until I was on vacation in Las Vegas and got research credentials to visit the UNLV Library. I accessed the Las Vegas newspapers there.

Truthfully I was surprised about the firing because they had just done their act at Sahati’s casino in Stateline, Nevada, and it went fine. I guess the Vegas audiences were a bit more hip than the Stateline crowd [the Fabulous Flamingo would be the last known time that Moe, Larry, and Shemp appeared onstage together].

A major revelation in A Tour De Farce was the paucity of in-person engagements by 1954.

In retrospect, given the precipitous decline in the screening of the Stooges’ Columbia shorts in theaters, it makes total sense.

Was there discussion about the Stooges’ children joining the team? Shemp’s only child Mort would have been pushing 30 years old when his father’s fatal coronary left them at loose ends two days before Thanksgiving 1955.

No. None of the children were interested in acting.

Applause for the solid research you uncovered that sets the record straight on Joe Besser never doing a single booking with Moe and Larry. So, why were there no live dates with Joe?

Because Besser was a Stooge at the wrong time. The Stooges’ popularity was fading during the final Shemp years so the Boys stopped touring during 1953–1955. Besser joined the Stooges for 1956–1957. It wasn’t until mid-1958 when the shorts were released to TV that their resurgence had begun. By that time, the act had broken up.

Like many vaudevillians, Besser had spent decades on the road with the dream of becoming a film star so he wouldn’t have to go on the road. At that point in his life he probably didn’t want to re-live that lifestyle again, so the Stooges enlisted Curly Joe DeRita.

You wrote, “1962 was the year that the Stooges were greeted by fans as if they were touring rock stars.” Was it a critical error in the long run for them to curtail their in-person appearance schedule come 1963? Their itinerary nosedived dramatically and never recovered until they quit the road in 1969.

Not much could be done to offset decreased demand. The kids who propelled them to popularity from 1958 — 1962 were teenagers by the mid-’60s with new interests in music, politics, the opposite sex, etc. The Stooges became old and irrelevant very quickly with all the rapid changes of that era.

Did the Stooges acknowledge the Summer of Love and the burgeoning hippie generation in their comedy patter?

No evidence that flower power made its way into the Stooges’ patter, but it did influence their fashion. Moe and Larry often wore turtlenecks, and Moe sported a necklace bearing a frog pendant. The Boys also changed their onstage outfits from tuxedos to brightly colored and wildly patterned stage jackets.

Moe and Larry’s partnership persevered for 41 incredible years until Father Time and Larry’s stroke forced the trio’s disbandment in January 1970. How much overhaul of their comedy material occurred during that timespan?

The changes were certainly evolutionary, not revolutionary, as many of the jokes from the Healy era hung around right up until the end. When they became a kids act in the late 1950s with Curly Joe, they dropped the blue humor that was a holdover from theaters and nightclubs but the corny stuff remained. Silly songs and patter were truly a constant for five decades.

Please share instances of the Stooges’ risqué and inoffensive routines.

Larry [holding a telegram]: “Moe, I have to get home. This telegram says, ‘Darling husband, not getting any better, come home at once.’” Moe: “Let me look at that” [reads the telegram to himself]. “Larry, you’re not reading this right. It says, ‘Darling husband, not getting any, better come home at once.’”

Moe: “If you’re good, your fairy godmother will protect and watch over you. Everyone has a fairy godmother.” Larry: “I don’t know about a fairy godmother, but I’ve got an uncle I’m not so sure about.”

Moe: “Did you take a bath this morning?” Curly: “No, I tried but someone was in the bathroom.” Moe: “What time?” Curly: “Around 9:30.” Moe: “That was my wife.” Curly: “Ain’t she skinny!”

Moe [to Larry] — “You know, son, you look like an overstuffed penguin. Just what are you?” Larry — “I’m a tailor. I could make you a beautiful suit with two pairs of pants and a fancy vest for $480.” Moe — “Four hundred and eighty dollars! You’re no tailor. You’re a robber!” Larry — “That’s me! Robert Taylor!” [Moe gives him a bang on the head].

Moe [to Curly] — “What does your watch say?” Curly [with great glee] — “It don’t say nuthin’. You gotta look at it!” [cue a whomp in the stomach from Moe].

Since A Tour De Farce’s publication, what Stooges material has come to light that you wish could have been incorporated?

Virtually nothing. I haven’t uncovered any new appearances, but of course I haven’t been seeking them out as actively as I was when researching the book. While a few new images have popped up, remember that the book contains over 1,500 images, many never-before-published, so the few new photos are just incidental, not monumental.

Your documentation of the Stooges’ tour dates is 90 — 95 percent complete. So what remains unknown?

Mostly the Boys’ one-night stands in small towns and the appearances that were not advertised to the general public — shows on military bases, private parties, etc.

What are some specific Stooges rabbit holes where you ran into a brick wall?

For one thing, I was hoping to verify or pin down the exact dates of many of the stories that Moe told in his posthumous autobiography [I Stooged to Conquer]. I ran into a lot of brick walls there because I soon learned that Moe was very bad with dates and had a penchant for telling a story that often didn’t match up with the actual facts. Like first seeing Ted Healy perform at the Prospect Theater in Brooklyn in 1922. I really wanted to find that one, but I couldn’t find any evidence that Healy ever appeared at the Prospect, let alone in 1922.

I was really hoping to find multiple occasions where Shemp filled in for Curly but could only turn up the one time in New Orleans in 1945.

There are about a dozen appearances that I have solid evidence for and know that they took place. However, I am missing a key piece of information, such as the exact date or location, so I can’t pin them down 100%. There’s a half dozen or so unknown stops on their USO-Coca-Cola-sponsored military base tour of 1951 that I know are out there. Eventually I’ll figure them out [Morton “The Irish Nightingale” Downey, song stylist Yvette, the novelty dance team of Helene and Howard, and the Carmen Mastren Orchestra accompanied Moe, Larry, and Shemp on a Continental Trailways bus into the New England states and the Deep South while the Korean War was in full swing].

How many of the 1,500-plus images were originally in color?

Very few. I’d say two or three dozen at most.

How straightforward was your journey in deciding on a cover photo?

To tie in with A Tour De Farce’s title, the ideal cover photo would convey both touring and the farcical nature of the Stooges’ act. While there were many photos that conveyed “on tour,” I could only find two photos that really conveyed the farce part.

One was the Stooges departing on a road trip with their car hunkered down with all sorts of unnecessary stuff, including a live goat! I wound up using that one across the two pages inside the front cover. The other was a shot of Pete the dog from the Our Gang comedies pushing the Stooges in a cart along Atlantic City’s boardwalk. Unfortunately, both of those images are horizontal layouts, and I couldn’t make them work with the book’s vertical layout.

So I weeded though a number of other shots until I settled on the train photo. I had decided in advance that Moe, Larry, and Curly would be the trio pictured on the front cover, and the shot I chose was the best of the bunch. It’s not farcical but the way the Boys are peeking around the corner in the totem pole position at least has a very playful feel to it.

Will there be future editions of A Tour De Farce?

Because the first printing is just about sold out, I’ve decided there will be a second printing, but it will not be called a revised edition because there really isn’t a lot of new information. Most likely I will merely clean up the typos and mistakes and reprint the same identical book. I don’t want people who bought the first printing to feel like they need to buy the second edition just for a few new tidbits of information.

With the wealth of Stooges personal appearances you have identified, would you entertain the notion of doing a follow-up book akin to Ernst Jorgensen and Peter Guralnick’s Elvis Day by Day: The Definitive Record of His Life and Music or Andrew Sandoval’s The Monkees: The Day-by-Day Story of the 60s TV Pop Sensation, tomes that chronicle their respective subject’s complete professional, and sometimes non-professional, activities?

Truthfully, after investing over five years on A Tour De Farce, the thought of doing a second book has no appeal at the moment. Maybe I’ll feel differently down the road.

Did you acquire memorabilia from Moe’s estate auction in 2019?

Yes, an assortment of scripts and lots of other cool Stoogeabilia including family photos.

How much available space remains in your incredible Stoogeum, a museum situated in Ambler, Pennsylvania?

None. The Stoogeum ran out of wall space in the early 2010s. When new artifacts arrive and are put out on display, older items must go into storage.

Might the Stoogeum add on another wing or room to accommodate your burgeoning collection?

No. The size of the Stoogeum is maxed out. However, making use of previously unutilized space as well as more efficient use of existing display space will be the focus of the next renovation project. That will enable more pieces to be displayed.

Should you retire or pass away, what will happen to the Stoogeum?

You’ll have to wait and find out!

Who else in your family retains a passion for the Stooges?

No one except our seven-year-old cockapoo. Charlie the wonder dog has a Moe chew toy that he likes.

How will the Stoogeum commemorate its 20th anniversary in 2024?

Free eye pokes to the first 100 visitors!

What’s been one of your most meaningful encounters at the Stoogeum?

I’d have to say the first time that Moe’s son Paul Howard came to the Stoogeum was pretty memorable. When he got his first look at the wax-coated bronze statue of his father dressed as a bellboy from Idle Roomers, he started to cry. He thought it was that realistic. The Curly and Larry statues are pretty good, but the Moe statue captures a glint in Moe’s eyes that really struck a nerve in Paul.

Which pop culture artists of yesteryear do you admire besides the Stooges?

The Lone Ranger, Sherlock Holmes, Buddy Rich, and Sandy Koufax.

Is there something I failed to ask that you’d like to address before we scram?

I’d just like to thank all the fans that helped provide me with information for A Tour De Farce. Over the years there were many who sent me photos, anecdotes, and other helpful stuff. The book would not have been possible without help from loyal Three Stooges fans.

© Jeremy Roberts, 2024. All rights reserved. The Gary Lassin interview was sequenced cohesively. To touch base, email [email protected] and mention which story led you my way. I appreciate it sincerely.