page_title: Curly Howard
section_title: Prime years
hierarchical_section_title: Curly Howard / Career / Prime years
caption_attribution_description: Advertising trade card picturing the Three Stooges-Larry Fine, Curly Howard and Moe Howard. The card was given to children at theaters where a Three Stooges film was playing. The bearer of the card had a chance to win a Three Stooges movie viewer at the theater. The card also promoted a giveaway from Pillsbury Farina. The grocer would give a movie viewer to anyone buying 2 packages of Pillsbury Farina.
context_page_description: Jerome Lester Horwitz, known professionally as Curly Howard, was an American vaudevillian actor and comedian. He was best known as a member of the American comedy team the Three Stooges, which also featured his elder brothers Moe and Shemp Howard and actor Larry Fine. Curly Howard was generally considered the most popular and recognizable of the Stooges. He was well known for his high-pitched voice and vocal expressions, as well as his physical comedy, improvisations, and athleticism. An untrained actor, Curly borrowed the "woob woob" from "nervous" and soft-spoken comedian Hugh Herbert. Curly's unique version of "woob-woob-woob" was firmly established by the time of the Stooges' second Columbia film, Punch Drunks.
  Howard was forced to leave the Three Stooges act in May 1946 when a massive stroke ended his show business career. He suffered through serious health problems and several more strokes until his death in 1952 at age 48.
context_section_description: Howard's childlike mannerisms and natural comedic charm made him a hit with audiences, particularly children. He was known in the act for having an "indestructible" head, which always won out by breaking anything that assaulted it, including saws (resulting in his characteristic quip, "Oh, look!"). Although having no formal acting training, his comedic skills were exceptional. Many times, directors simply let the camera roll freely and let Howard improvise. Jules White, in particular, left gaps in the Stooge scripts where he could improvise for several minutes. In later years, White commented: "If we wrote a scene and needed a little something extra, I'd say to Curly, 'Look, we've got a gap to fill this in with a "woob-woob" or some other bit of business', and he never disappointed us."
  By the time the Stooges hit their peak in the late 1930s, their films had almost become vehicles for Howard's unbridled comic performances. Classics such as A Plumbing We Will Go (1940), We Want Our Mummy (1938), An Ache in Every Stake (1941), Cactus Makes Perfect (1942), and their most violent short, They Stooge to Conga (1943), display his ability to take inanimate objects (food, tools, pipes, etc.) and turn them into ingenious comic props. Moe Howard later confirmed that when Curly forgot his lines, that merely allowed him to improvise on the spot so that the "take" could continue uninterrupted:
  If we were going through a scene and he'd forget his words for a moment, you know, rather than stand, get pale and stop, you never knew what he was going to do. On one occasion, he'd get down to the floor and spin around like a top until he remembered what he had to say.
  Howard also developed a set of Brooklyn-accented reactions and expressions that the other Stooges would imitate long after he had left the act:
  "Nyuk, nyuk, nyuk" – Curly Howard's trademark laugh, accompanied by manic finger-snapping, often used to amuse himself
  "Woob, woob, woob!" –cheering used when he was either happy, scared, dazed, or flirting with a "dame"
  "Hmmm!" – an under-the-breath, high-pitched sound meant to show frustration
  "Nyahh-ahhh-ahhh!" – scared reaction (this was the reaction most often used by the other Stooges after Howard's departure)
  "La-Dee" or simply "La, la, laaa" – his singing used when he was acting innocently right before taking out an enemy
  "Ruff Ruff" – dog bark, used to give an enemy a final push before departing the scene, expressing anger, showing defiance or barking at an attractive dame
  "Ha-cha-cha!" – a take on Jimmy Durante's catchphrase
  "I'm a victim of soicumstance! [circumstance]"-used to express uncertainty
  "Soitenly!" ("certainly")
  "I'll moider you!" ("I'll murder you!")
  "Huff huff huff!" – sharp, huffing exhales either due to excitement or meant to provoke a foe
  "Ah-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba!" – used during his later years, a sort of nonsense, high-pitched yelling that signified being scared or overly excited
  "Indubitably" – an expression used to feign an intelligent response
  His teeth, while chattering nervously, made the sound of a small hammer striking a chisel
  "Oh! A WISE guy, eh?" – annoyed response
  "Oh, look!" – surprised remark, usually about a common object
  "Say a few syllables!" – to another (injured) Stooge, usually Moe
  Occasionally, the Stooges faced a problem that required deep thought, whereupon Curly would bang his head on a wall several times, then shout, "I got it!  I got it!"   Moe would ask, "What have you got?"  Curly's answer: "A terrific headache."
  Despite his mispronunciations, he had an uncanny ability to instantly spell big words, such as "chrysanthemum", if asked. The gag was that Curly never did it, when something important was at stake. In one scene, the Stooges were in a situation where this talent might have landed them a job, but Curly had missed his opportunity. Moe's reaction would be to growl, "Where were you a minute ago?" and then smack him.
  On several occasions, Moe Howard was convinced that rising star Lou Costello (a close friend of Shemp's) was stealing material from his brother. Costello was known to a
caption: L to R: Larry Fine, Curly Howard, and Moe Howard, 1937
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "72", "Image YResolution": "72", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS3 Windows", "Image DateTime": "2017:03:21 02:03:48", "Image ExifOffset": "164", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "72", "Thumbnail YResolution": "72", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "302", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "6252", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "865", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1410"}