I wrote an essay about the history of the Stooges several years ago which I'll share here for any interested:
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Yo, Three Stooges fan, quickly: who came first as a stooge, Curly or Shemp? If you’re like me, you remember that Curly was replaced by his brother Shemp after he, Curly, suffered a massive and debilitating stroke in 1946. But what I didn’t know is that the Stooges had had a long Vaudeville career already by the time Curly made his first film appearance with Larry and Moe in the early 1930s, and that the original Three Stooges, who had been assembled for more than ten years before that were Moe, Larry and Shemp, not Curly. So, just about the time that they began making the transition from stage to screen, which is where their careers began for most of us who know them only through their shorts and feature films, Shemp had just decided to bow out, making room for his brother Curly, and that when Curly’s career ended nearly fifteen years later following that stroke, his replacement by Shemp marked Shemp’s return to the Stooges, not his debut.
Incidentally, you might not have known that Moe, Shemp and Curly (nyuk, nyuk, nyuk!) were brothers, all using the stage name Howard. They were born Horwitzes, Harry, Samuel and Jerome, respectively. Shemp was the eldest by about two years. Moe was in the middle, and Curley (woo-woo-woo), the youngest, was about six years younger than Moe. Larry’s stage name was Fine. He was born Louis Feinberg, and he was younger than Moe but older than Curly
The Stooges were originally hired by a Vaudevillian named Ted Healy in stages between 1922 and 1925 and billed as 'Ted Healy and His Stooges', after trying the names 'Ted Healy and His Southern Gentlemen', 'Ted Healy and His Three Lost Souls' and 'Ted Healy and His Racketeers.' Healy was the star who would entertain by singing and telling jokes while his assistants, originally just Moe from 1922 to 1923, then Moe and Shemp, and finally Moe, Shemp and Larry, would continually interrupt him, causing Healy to heap verbal and physical abuse on them, which would become the basis of their act even after they separated from Healy after ten years in 1932, with Moe assuming the roll of the chief deliverer of abuse to the other two Stooges.
The beginning of the end for Healy came following the 1930 feature film Soup to Nuts with Ted Healy and his Stooges (including Shemp) making their film debut. The movie didn’t do well, but Fox, the producer, was pleased with the Stooges performance – but not Ted Healy’s – and offered the boys a contract to make more movies without Healy which they jumped at. When Healy heard what had happened, he intervened, claiming that the Stooges worked for him, and Fox rescinded the offer to the Stooges. It was clear to them that Healy was holding them back since Fox didn’t want him in their movies and Healy wasn’t going to let the Stooges grow without him. So, the Stooges left Healy in 1932, but not amicably. Healy hired replacement stooges, but that went nowhere. During this time, Healy continued to harass the boys as they made the theater circuit without him, filing infringement of copyright lawsuits against them and even threatening to bomb stages that they appeared on, a fact which almost caused Shemp to quit. Meanwhile, Moe had assumed the role of business manager for the Stooges, and on their behalf eventually agreed to reunite with Healy and try to make a go of it again.
But almost immediately, Healy got an offer that didn’t include the Stooges, and in 1932, he found a loophole in the contract that he had forged with Moe, and left the Stooges. That was the last straw for Shemp, who, after making the Stooges only film appearance to date, left the act. He was quickly replaced by Curly, the third stooge from 1932 until his stroke in 1946, the period that most of us erroneously considered the origin of The Three Stooges, and why we think of Curly, not Shemp, as an original Stooge. Curly made thirteen films as a stooge between 1932 and 1946, including his debut in 1933 in a film called Dancing Lady with, strangely enough, Ted Healy, and an amazing cast that included Joan Crawford, Clark Gable, Franchot Tone, Fred Astaire, Robert Benchley, Nelson Eddy, and Sterling Holloway.
Except for a few months in 1975 between Larry’s death in January and Moe’s death four months later in May when The Three Stooges finally ceased to exist,The Three Stooges were always played by Moe Howard, Larry Fine and one of four different third stooges During those first few months in 1975 after Larry’s death and until Moe’s, Emil Sitka filled Larry’s spot, the only exception to the rule that two of the stooges were always Moe and Larry. Sitka, however, never appeared on film, only publicity shots, so, it can be argued that he was never actually a stooge.
Throughout the generations of stoogedom and through all of their cast changes, Moe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moe_Howard and Larry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Fine were the fixtures of the act, the anchors, who worked with four different third stooges. As we’ve already discussed, the original third stooge was Shemp
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shemp_Howard , who had his first stint with the troupe in the Vaudeville days from 1922 – 1932.
Then came Curly
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curly_Howard , and by far the most popular of the stooges. Curly joined the stooges 1932 when their film career first took off, until 1946, the year of his stroke. Although he didn’t pass away untill 1952, he never worked again. In those years, Curly appeared on 97 shorts, the first 97 of 190 altogether that the boys made.
Shemp returned reluctantly in 1947. He only agreed to rejoin Moe and Larry to save the act until Curly recovered, but unfortunately, that never happened. Shemp stayed on and made 77 more shorts until his sudden and unexpected death in 1955 from a massive heat attack.
Then came Joe Besser from 1956 – 1958. It was at this time that Columbia Studios shut down it shorts department and stopped making the two-reelers, although it had enough of them in the can to continue releasing them until 1959. Larry and Moe decided to take the act on the road live, but Joe declined and left the act. Some people may remember Joe Besser for some of his work after the Three Stooges, most notably as the superintendant on the Joey Bishop Show. He had a characteristic whiney way of talking and an unforgettable face .Then came Curly Joe DeRita from 1958 – 1975 when the act finally shut down following Larry’s then Moe’s death.
It was the short films, or “shorts” that the boys were best known for. The first one was produced in 1934. By 1959, when the last of them was produced, the boys had finished 190 of them, making one approximately every six weeks. Curly was in the first 97 of them, then Shemp appeared in the next 77 of them, and finally, Joe Besser in the last 16.