About Me
I was the frizzy-haired star of the legendary comedy team the The Three Stooges. Upstaged by the team's angry leader Moe and the scene-stealing Curly, I was indeed the comic "glue" between the two. Yet comedian Jerry Seinfeld once said of me that, like his father, " Larry never did anything but it wasn't the same without him." (Curly's successors, Shemp Howard, Joe Besser and Curly-Joe deRita also did right by me as well.) In fact, my stroke ended the Stooges for good, underscoring my value! I was born Louis Feinberg on Philadelphia's south side, the oldest of four children of watch repair jewelry shop owner(and my dear old Dad) Joseph Feinberg and my Mother Fanny Lieberman. I burned my arm while my father was working with metals, and his doctors recommended I play the violin as therapy. I could also play piano, clarinet, and saxophone (let's see you do that Moe!). I went into vaudeville, playing violin, dancing and doing Jewish dialect. I 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 my screen character, I was laid-back, talkative and charitable. (When Shemp replaced the ill Curly, it was Me who insisted each Stooge give $50 a week to Curly, who couldn't work because of a stroke that eventually killed him.) I gave my money away to down-and-out actors, gambled and threw parties. With disdain for housekeeping, Me and my wife Mabel lived in hotels and didn't own a house until I was in my late 40s. I was tardy on the set, yet my 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, our popularity revived when our shorts showed up on TV. We did live shows, made six films, and appeared on TV before I suffered a stroke while making the unfinished 1970 film "Kook's Tour," leaving me partially paralyzed. My wife had passed away and so I lived with my daughter Phyllis until Moe placed (I say Forced me!) me into the Motion Picture Country Home in Woodland Hills, Calif. Despite my illness and being wheelchair-bound, I appeared on TV, gave shows at schools, entertained the other patients, and wrote the optimistically titled book, "A Stroke of Luck." My unfortunate death ruined my fun in 1975 and I've been in a casket ever since. It's a bit cramped in this coffin but I got me one of those flashlights you shake (they say they last forever) so I'd like to thank laptop computers and Tom from MySpace for still allowing me contact with my legions of fans. It's just as well, I'm in this vault because really...you don't wanna see what I look like now! 31 years in the grave is not a pretty sight!
