The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time [Paperback]

Jeff Forrester (Author), Tom Forrester (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 2004

Did Stooge favorites Curly, Shemp and Larry suffer cerebral hemorrhages as a result of being repeatedly hit on the head? What role did the Stooges' creator Ted Healy play in the mysterious death of comedienne Thelma Todd? Was Healy himself fatally beaten by a group of tough guys (including actor Wallace Beery and gangster Pat DiCicco) during a nightclub brawl on Hollywood's Sunset Strip? What did Beery's boss, MGM president Louis B. Mayer, do to cover up the incident? And what was the connection between the New York Mafia, Columbia Pictures rajah Harry Cohn, and the Stooges themselves? These and many other fascinating questions are addressed in this definitive look at the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

There have been funnier but no more durable comedy teams than the Three Stooges. They had to be durable to survive all the slapping, eye-gouging, and head-butting they inflicted on each other during their 50-year career. The Forrester brothers' fifth Stooges book traces the trio from vaudeville days with comedian Ted Healy, through the 200-plus movies that were instrumental to the survival of their studio (Columbia), to the sad spectacle of survivors of more than one version of the trio continuing the raucous act in their seventies. The justification for the book is "never-before-revealed facts" about such peripheral matters as Healy's death long after he and the Stooges had parted, and the possibility that the strokes that killed Curly and Moe Howard may have been the ultimate results of their comical violence. Its picture-on-every-page illustration policy also recommends the book. Stoogeless libraries, in particular, could soit'nly do worse than add this book. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Review

A marvelous book! It captures the essence of the Stooges so well ... with revealing information and research ... it's just magnificent! -- GARY OWENS (The Music For Your Life Radio Network)

I could not put this thing down! It's just incredible! I guarantee you'll enjoy it. Get this book! -- Marc Bailey, XETV-TV / Fox Television

Insightful and packed with amazing information. This is a treasure-trove of history, plotlines, biographies, dirty secrets, and rare photos. -- JAMES COX (The Midwest Book Review)

It could have been the O.J. Simpson story of its day ... but only recently did it surface in print! -- Jim Mueller, The Chicago Tribune

It isn't just funny stuff ... there's a lot of tragedy here. If you're into the Stooges, this is for you! -- PAUL BARSKY (Greater Media Radio)

The Forresters have done it again! This book is phenomenal, comprehensive and worth anyone's attention ... quality, insight and excellence. Bravo! -- VICTORIA ZIELINSKI (VH1/MTV Networks)

This is the first Three Stooges book that gives you both the sizzle and the steak. -- Gary Deeb, Gannett Television

What a great book! I picked it up and could not put it down! I love this book! -- MANCOW MULLER (Free Speech Radio Network)

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 200 pages
• Publisher: Donaldson Books; First Edition edition (November 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0971580103
• ISBN-13: 978-0971580107
• Product Dimensions: 10.9 x 8.3 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #923,382 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars SOITENLY the DEFINITIVE book on the Stooges -- PERIOD!!!, May 1, 2002

By 

Joel L. Gandelman (San Diego, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time (Paperback)

Some say there were funnier comedy teams than The Three Stooges but the comedy team many women love to hate is undisputedly the most successful comedy team in movie
history. Their films STILL pack `em in at revivals, Stooge conventions brim with Curly imitators and each year yet more books are published on America's favorite knuckleheads (American's LEAST favorite knuckleheads can be found in Congress).

But the question is: with ALL of the countless hours on t.v. devoted to the Stooges, ALL of the videos and DVDs on them, ALL of the books and documentaries can you learn anything NEW from a book -- especially if the book was penned by writers who
wrote four other books on Stooges?

The answer is a RESOUNDING YES.

This is the DEFINITIVE The Three Stooges book, chock full of fascinating NEW INFORMATION on their lives, personalities, and even the "unknown" stage Stooges who performed into the 70s. As if that isn't enough, the authors convincingly suggest that rough-stuff comedy contributed to at least three of the Stooges' strokes, and that the Stooges' vaudevillian creator Ted Healy may have been beaten to death by a Hollywood star and a gangland bigwig.

Stooges fans will go nuts (as if they aren't already) over the superb collection of photos and illustrations, many of them never before published. Plus, this account brims with great new candid quotes from the Stooges and their associates.

And, unlike some other Stooges books, this one is a ABSOLUTE MUST addition to the library of ANYONE interested comedy and comedy history -- since gives the best account yet of the step-by-step evolution of the Stooges' comedy.

There are countless new facts, twists, and explanations in this book. Here are just a few of the new revelations I learned. I read how:

--Stooges founder Ted Healy was the FIRST comedian to play comedy off someone else (now a staple of comedy). Healy, one of the show biz's greatest performers, was on the verge of becoming a major movie star when he died (the authors suggest he was murdered and it may have been covered up). When Healy died, his wise-guy, smart aleck movie persona was taken over by a young comedian named Bob Hope.

--Curly, Shemp, Larry, Joe Besser (the most unloved Stooge) all suffered strokes...and being on the receiving end of the Stooges rough brand of comedy may be a key reason why.

--Shemp was one of the first Stooges, but even when he stepped out of the act and Curly took his place he played a key behind the scenes role (read what he did).

--Replacing Curly was always difficult since Curly was pure-vaudeville....and by the time he left the act, after a stroke while filming a Stooges comedy, vaudeville was dead. The book wonderfully accounts the searches for Curly replacements -- and the other stage versions of the Stooges, based on the Health vaudeville act.

--Moe believed that SEVERAL comedy teams (the book names them) lifted parts of Curley's stage persona to propel themselves to fame and fortune.

When an author writes too much about a subject, it's said he is "written out." There's no sign the Forrester brothers are written out on The Three Stooges -- but it's hard to see how they (or anyone) will EVER top this superbly written, illustrated and researched book.

18 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Best Book Ever Written About The Three Stooges, February 22, 2002

By 

Dana Thompson (Los Angeles, CA / USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time (Paperback)

I have read every book available about The Three Stooges, and this is by far the best ever written on the subject. Fascinating, captivating, sometimes-shocking, and extremely well-researched text describes not only what it was like to be in on the inception of the team with Ted Healy in vaudeville, but also addresses Healy's untimely death/murder, the team's rocky road to solo success in radio and film, and eventual meteoric rise to super stardom in television and contemporary home entertainment. I was also amazed to discover that there were 18 different men to play the role of one of the "Three" Stooges throughout the team's lengthy career in showbusiness (most fans think there were only 6). This is also the most lavishly illustrated Stooge book ever, jammed-packed with rare photos of the Stooges both in and out of character, as well as posters, programs and newspaper clippings from throughout the team's entire career. I ordered my copy at stoogebook.com, where the book comes autographed by the authors (Stooge historians Jeff Forrester and Tom Forrester), editor Joe Wallison, and 92-year-old surviving vaudeville Stooge, Mousie Garner. If you're a Stooge fan, you can also visit the stoogebook.com website and get your name printed in the book's Fandom Honor Roll section like I did. This is the fifth Stooge book by the Forrester Brothers, and it is by far the best in the series. I strongly recommend this book to any Stooge fan, as well as anyone interested in Hollywood history and comedy in general.

22 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Grandiose Embellishments, Bad Writing, Bad Editing., February 1, 2006

By 

Robert (Chicago) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time (Paperback)

Cheap homage is paid to the Three Stooges in this book, attention to accuracy and detail are not. This book contains multitudes of errors and desperately requires a competent editor with some integrity. From Page One the authors take grandiose liberties with detail, spreading embellishments thickly like a spicey (and spoiled) condiment. For instance, the book opens describing the day the Three Stooges were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. It begins: "It was one of the hottest days in recorded history of Hollywood..." In reality the National Weather Service lists the temperature in Hollywood that day of August 30, 1983 as reaching a high of 93 fahrenheit. There is no record there, not even close. The text is insulting to anyone knowledgeable in the career of the comedians, and anyone labeling it "definitive" or "best" needs to actually read the book rather than just skim through its pictures and mouth off. For gosh sakes, one of the Stooges' names is misspelled throughout the entire book. In another of many fantastic exaggerations within the book, the authors describe the U.S. Government approaching the Three Stooges with an offer to appear in a promotional film in the 1960's for Savings Bonds. The government didn't approach them, the team's producer Mr. Norman Maurer (Moe Howard's son-in-law) hired them because he was making the film. There was nothing official or governmental about that. There is no reliable research to support the claim here that the Stooges landed on Adolph Hitler's "death list." To purport the actors died from Moe's slaps is laughable. Unfortunately, such is emblematic of the overall unscrupulous high school reporting in this book. As far as an attempt at being historically accurate, this book painfully stumbles and wildly exaggerates, sometimes manufacturing details for effect. Film titles go unfinished and misspelled throughout (see "You Nazty Spy!", "The Outlaws IS Coming!", "4 for Texas" as examples). The ancillary photography in this book proceeds beyond mere perspective purposes and enters the territory of absolute confusion and waste of space, or just filler. What are Jackie Gleason, Danny Kaye, Red Skelton, Charlie Chaplin, Louis Armstrong, Laurel and Hardy, The Ritz Brothers, Wally Vernon, Thelma Todd (laying dead in a car accident), and Harold Lloyd doing pictured in this book? While there are some worthwile photographs present, the book's overall design is like a maddening labyrinth. I could continue but where would I stop?