Tales from the Morgue: Larry, Moe and Curly Joe

Slapstick Tag Shunned By The Three Stooges

By KEN BURTON

Whatever it is that the Three Stooges do, it's not slapstick.

"What we do is strictly farce," said top Stooge Moe Howard here yesterday, "and I'll argue that point with anyone. Slapstick started in the circus and that's where it belongs."

Moe was without his shaggy locks when he deplaned at Tucson International Airport yesterday. A jaunty straw hat and glasses made him appear out of his zany character.

Close behind were the other two Stooges — Larry (Fine) and Curly Joe (DeRita). Larry, the one with puffs of hair at either side of his head, and Curly, the heavy one, were instantly recognizable.

Curly wasn't feeling well. He made the Tucson trip for the Pima Mental Health Assn. benefit at Hi Corbett Field last night despite a 102-degree fever earlier in the day.

Still, all three Stooges clowned it up with a Continental Airlines stewardess who had not been born when the three began their hectic show business career.

For Moe, who admits to outdating Jack Benny but not his age, that career began in 1908 when he appeared in a half-dozen feature films for Vitagraph Studios in Brooklyn.

The Stooges' title was not to become official until 1934. That year, the group was signed with Columbia Pictures and eventually made 204 two-reel comedies between 1934 and 1958.

Television, "without a doubt," said Moe, was the big factor in the Stooges' resurgent popularity. But because TV had not come into being when the three signed their movie contracts, they gain not a cent from the old pictures.

Relaxing at the Tucson hotel where they stayed last night, Moe sipped a martini (straight up, no olive) and reflected about how so many of the good comics are gone.

Larry, sipping a diet Fresca (on the rocks, with straw) autographed a small color photo of the Three Stooges for an attractive mini-skirted young mother who told him that her son "adored" the comedy team.