Hollywood Memorial

Larry was the frizzy-haired star of the legendary comedy team the ‘The Three Stooges.’ Upstaged by the team’s angry leader Moe Howard and the scene-stealing Curly Howard, Larry was indeed the comic ‘glue’ between the two. Yet comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said that Larry, like his own father, ‘never did anything but it wasn’t the same without him.’ In fact, Larry’s stroke ended the Stooges for good, underscoring his value. He met Moe Howard in 1925 and joined the Three Stooges with Moe’s brother Shemp. When Shemp left and Moe’s younger brother Jerome joined the act as Curly in 1934, the Three Stooges began making two-reel shorts for 24 years. Like his screen character, Larry was laid-back, talkative and charitable. (When Shemp replaced the ill Curly, Larry insisted each Stooge give $50 a week to Curly, who couldn’t work because of a stroke that eventually killed him.) He gave his money away to down-and-out actors, gambled and threw parties. With disdain for housekeeping, he and wife Mabel lived in hotels and didn’t own a house until Larry’s late 40s. He was tardy on the set, yet his performing was effortless. ‘I think Larry was the best actor of three,’ said Moe’s son-in-law and director Norman Maurer. ‘I used to argue with Moe about giving him more lines because Larry was good, but Moe was against it.’ When Columbia unceremoniously dumped the Stooges in 1958, their popularity revived when their shorts showed up on TV. They did live shows, made six films, and appeared on TV before the widowed Larry suffered a stroke leaving him partially paralyzed. He lived with his daughter Phyllis until Moe placed him in the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, Calif. Larry, despite his illness and being wheelchair-bound, appeared on TV, gave shows at schools, entertained the other patients, and wrote the optimistically titled book, ‘A Stroke of Luck.’ Larry is interred in a crypt in Forest Lawn in Glendale, California.