THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, February 19, 1996 TAG: 9602170067
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: Larry Bonko
LENGTH: Medium: 95 lines
HERE IT IS, 62 years since the Three Stooges made the first of 194 two-reel comedies for Columbia Pictures, and Curly's ``n'yuk, n'yuk, n'yuk'' is still heard around the world.
If you want proof of the enduring popularity of the Three Stooges, here it is from the East and West coasts:
At The Family Channel headquarters in Virginia Beach, senior vice president of programming Gus Lucas announced that starting tonight, FAM will run an hour of Three Stooges films and shorts Monday through Friday at 11 p.m.
Before that, beginning at noon today, The Family Channel puts on a Three Stooges marathon - seven hours, 21 shorts including one from 1934 (``Men in Black'') when the vaudeville team of Howard, Fine and Howard evolved into The Three Stooges of the two-reelers.
In Los Angeles, heirs to the Three Stooges estate recently ended their skirmishing over the rights to royalties and merchandising fees when they settled a suit that was filed 2 1/2 years ago. At stake are great sums of money - between $30 and $75 million a year, according to sources quoted by The Los
Angeles Times on the day the suit was settled.
How ironic.
Fortunes have been made, and will continue to be made, as the result of what they did on film. And yet the Stooges - six in all - hardly lived in luxury.
``The men died with next to nothing,'' said attorney Earl Benjamin by phone from Los Angeles where he and his brother, Robert, initiated the suit that pitted the heirs of Joe ``Curly'' DeRita and Larry Fine against the survivors of Moe Howard. (DeRita was the Benjamins' stepfather.)
With the suit settled, the heirs have become partners in a company called Comedy III, which will soon license products ranging from watches to boxer shorts, from chess sets to designer ties.
Benjamin said there are plans to revive the Three Stooges movie franchise.
``Their comedy is timeless,'' said Benjamin. ``In whatever they did, there was always the theme that no matter how much they looked like bungling fools, the Stooges wound up on top.''
What about the violence? It has alarmed some parents and educators.
There was no blood and guts, said Benjamin. ``It's obvious to even the youngest children that these men were not really hurting each other.''
Not even when Moe took a wrench to Curly's nose? Or Larry poked Moe with the slide from a slide trombone? Or Moe used Curly's nose for a tee on the golf course? Or they put Curly's head on an anvil and bashed it with a sledge hammer in ``Knutzy Knights''?
``Classic slapstick,'' said Lucas at The Family Channel.
In a 1990s film revival, how about Chris Farley, late of ``Saturday Night Live'' and the new film, ``Black Sheep,'' to play Curly? Robin Williams as Moe? Steven Wright as Larry? In fact, there is a Three Stooges revival going on nightly at a Las Vegas theme park. It has the blessing of the heirs.
The suit was filed in Los Angeles in 1993 soon after DeRita's share of profits from merchandising fell to $34.65. His wife, the Benjamins' mother, alleged another $5 million was owed to DeRita, who died in 1993. The last living Stooge.
He was preceded in death by three others who played the third man, Shemp Howard, Jerome Howard - the most famous Curly of them all - and Joe Besser. DeRita appeared with Fine and Moe Howard in their last feature, ``The Outlaws is Coming,'' made in 1965. The last time a Stooge was seen on film: Moe Howard in 1973 had a small part in ``Doctor Death, Seeker of Souls.''
While the Stooges saw their salaries climb to $75,000 a year, which was big money in the 1940s, they never shared in the profits from their 194 shorts and five features.
``Columbia made millions from the Stooges,'' said Moe Howard in his autobiography. ``The studio told us in the 1950s that movie houses no longer wanted our two-reelers. That was to keep us from asking for increases in salary. In truth, our films were always in tremendous demand.''
And still are.
The Three Stooges were born again on TV in the 1950s along with Hopalong Cassidy, Gene Autry and Roy Rogers. Columbia reeled in millions more.
``They were never really paid fabulous salaries,'' Benjamin said of any and all the Stooges. ``They were just working guys at a studio earning modest Hollywood salaries. When Fine, the Howards and DeRita died, they had next to nothing.''
The Family Channel on Monday includes two-reelers in which both Shemp Howard and Jerome ``Curly'' Howard appear as the third Stooge. The film career of Shemp, Moe and Larry Fine was just beginning to roll - they were billed as Ted Healy's Stooges in the early 1930s - when Shemp quit to go it alone in movies.
That's when Moe and Fine called on Moe's younger brother, Jerome, who cut off his thick, wavy hair and waxed-tipped moustache to look like a clown ``with a head like a dirty tennis ball.''
He's the Curly who gave us the n'yuk n'yuk n'yuks. He was the Stooge we all liked best. ILLUSTRATION: RIGHT: A seven-hour Three Stooges marathon begins today at noon
on The Family Channel.
by CNB