page_title: Larry Fine
section_title: Three Stooges features
hierarchical_section_title: Larry Fine / Acting career / Three Stooges features
caption_attribution_description: A scene from Malice in the Palace.
context_page_description: Louis Feinberg, known professionally as Larry Fine, was an American actor, comedian, violinist, and boxer, who is best known as a member of the comedy act the Three Stooges.
context_section_description: Beginning in 1932, the Three Stooges made 206 short films and several features, their most prolific period starring Fine, Moe Howard, and Curly Howard. Their career with Healy was marked by disputes over pay, film contracts, and Healy's drinking and verbal abuse. Fine and the Howard brothers finally left Healy for good in 1934.
  In films from the Curly era, the Larry character did more reacting than acting, staying in the background and serving as the voice of reason in contrast to the zany antics of Moe and Curly. He was a surrealistic foil and the middle ground between Moe's gruffly "bossy" and Curly's childish personae. Like the other Stooges, Larry was often on the receiving end of Moe's abuse. His reasonableness was the perfect foil to Moe's brusque bluntness and Curly's or Shemp's boyish immaturity, but Larry sometimes proposed something impossible or illogical and was quickly put down verbally and physically by Moe, who often pulled a handful of hair out of Larry's head. Film critic Leonard Maltin wrote, "Larry is the least distinctive character of the trio, but he adds a pleasing touch by siding with either Moe or Curly, depending on the situation, thereby enabling him to show moments of lucidity as well as lunacy."
  After Curly suffered a debilitating stroke in May 1946, Shemp replaced him in the act. The Shemp era marked a period of increased onscreen presence for Larry, who had been relegated to a background role during the Curly era. Upon Shemp's return, he was allotted equal onscreen time, even becoming the focus of several films, in particular Fuelin' Around (1949) and He Cooked His Goose (1952).
  On November 22, 1955, Shemp died of a heart attack. Joe Palma played a fake Shemp role in three previously contracted Stooges shorts, then Joe Besser succeeded him as the third Stooge. Joe DeRita replaced Besser in 1958 when the team was fired from Columbia Pictures.
  In the earliest Stooge films, Larry frequently indulged in utterly nutty behavior. Fine livened scenes up with improvised remarks or ridiculous actions. In the hospital spoof Men in Black (1934), Larry, dressed as a surgeon and wielding a large kitchen knife, chortles: "Let's pluck him... and see if he's ripe!" In Disorder in the Court (1936), a tense courtroom scene is interrupted by Larry breaking into a wild Tarzan yell. Of course, after each of his outbursts, Moe would gruffly put him down. According to Fine's brother, Fine developed a callus on one side of his face from being slapped so often by Moe.
  Larry's goofiness has been described as an extension of Fine's own relaxed personality. Director Charles Lamont recalled: "Larry was a nut. He was the kind of guy who always said anything. He was a yapper." Writer-director Edward Bernds remembered that Fine's suggestions for the scripts were often "flaky", but occasionally contained good comic ideas.
  The Three Stooges became a big hit on television in 1959, when Columbia Pictures released a batch of their films, whose popularity brought them to a new audience and revitalized their careers.
caption: Larry Fine (right) in 1949's Malice in the Palace with Moe Howard and Shemp Howard
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