Paul "Mousie" Garner, who died last Sunday at age 95, was a veteran performer, starting back in the halcyon days of vaudeville. He was never much of a star but he was a nice man who loved to talk about the business and especially about his affiliation with the Three Stooges. Back when it was Moe, Larry and Shemp performing on stage with Ted Healy, Mousie was the pinch-hitter, filling in when Shemp was out. Several decades later, whenever the Stooges were down a member, there would be talk of Mousie rejoining the troupe…and at one point, "Curly" Joe DeRita briefly toured with Garner and another comic, billing themselves as "The New Three Stooges."
All of that gave Mousie the right, I suppose, to bill himself as part of the famous act and since he outlived the others and was so accessible, he was the go-to guy when any Stooge chronicler needed someone to interview. He actually did more than serve as a standby Stooge, but not a lot more. The times I chatted with him at autograph shows, we talked about his association with Spike Jones and also with Olsen and Johnson, who sent him out in the touring company of their Broadway smash, Hellzapoppin'. He would say that he planned to "semi-retire" from show business when he hit his hundredth birthday. I'm not sure what that meant since he sure didn't seem to be working the last few decades…but it's still a shame he didn't make it to retirement age.