"Gary from Buffalo" wrote to ask…
You have mentioned on occasion that you were friends with Norman Maurer, son-in-law of Moe Howard. Did you ever ask Norman if he would introduce you to Moe? Seems like that would've been a great opportunity to ask for a ceremonial eye-poke. For that matter did you ever meet Larry Fine or Joe Besser/Joe DeRita?
Well, Curly died two months before I was born and Shemp died when I was three so that let them out. I met Moe on two occasions — not through Norman — but nothing that was said was any more memorable than "I've always enjoyed your films" and "Thank you." He was very nice and like all his partners, way shorter than I imagined.
I met the other three. I made two or three trips (I think two) out to the Motion Picture Country Hospital where Larry Fine was living after his stroke. However many I made, they were all pretty much carbons of each others. Larry was a sweet man who was delighted to have the company but he had about twelve anecdotes and no matter what you asked him about, you got one of the twelve. He did not remember everything about his past and if you'd pointed an AR-15–style rifle at him, he couldn't have told you what he had for breakfast that morning. But I enjoyed spending time with him.
I met Joe DeRita at a one-day comic convention down near Disneyland. He was there to sign photos for money…which is fairly common these days for famous folks but it wasn't then. Kids who wanted to meet him — most of whom didn't seem to know the difference between him and Curly Howard — were shocked that his signature was not free and after a few unpleasant encounters, Mr. DeRita decided to stop charging. A few tables away from us, famed starlet Edy Williams was selling and signing posters of herself, some of which were pretty darned naked. She left that day with a nice wad o' cash.
I had a great chat with Curly Joe, much of which was about his pre-Stooges film career and his times in Vegas working in splashy, big-budget burlesque revues. But we kept getting interrupted by kids who wanted to meet "Curly," and some of them went away thinking they had.
I met Joe Besser in the waiting room at Hanna-Barbera. He was there that day to record a voice track for some cartoon show — Yogi's Space Race, I think — and I spotted him sitting on a couch and pounced. We talked about everything except his time as a Stooge…which I'd been told was not the happiest gig of his career. Someone who knew him well later told me that it bothered Joe that some people knew him from that and only that, which to him meant they were unaware of 80% of all he'd done…or just plain disinterested.
We talked about him working with Abbott and Costello (he loved them) and Joey Bishop (he didn't like the man) and so many other things. I recall an awkward moment when he asked me about my career and what I'd done and as I replied, he kept saying, "Well, if you're such a fan of mine, why didn't you hire me for that show?" I had that happen to me with Soupy Sales and a few others and there was never an easy way to respond. But I did like the guy and it was fascinating to hear him talk in his not-in-character manner…with occasional lapses into the Joe Besser I knew from TV.
So to sum up: I met two-thirds of the six men who'd been full-fledged members of the Three Stooges. I liked 'em all. I wish I'd had more time with Moe. None of them slapped me or poked me in the eyes or broke pottery over my head. If I sound like I'm bragging…well, yes, I guess I am.
