Moe Howard — stooge with roots in the Russian Empire
Moe Howard was born Moses Harry Horwitz on 19 June 1897 in the Bensonhurst neighbourhood of Brooklyn, the fourth of five sons of Solomon Horwitz, a clothing cutter, and Jennie, née Gorovitz. His parents were Lithuanian Jews from Kovno, now Kaunas, then the capital of the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire. They were second cousins, spoke the Litvak dialect of Yiddish and emigrated to New York around 1890. Of their sons, Benjamin, known as Jack, and Irving stayed out of show business; Samuel, Moses and Jerome became Shemp, Moe and Curly Howard.
Moe left high school after two months to go on stage. In 1909 he met the vaudeville comedian Ted Healy, and in 1922 joined him, with Shemp, in an act that became Ted Healy and His Stooges, joined later by the violinist Larry Fine. In 1925 Moe married Helen Schonberger, a cousin of Harry Houdini. Healy and his Stooges made their first feature, Soup to Nuts, for Fox in 1930, with Moe billed as Harry Howard.
When Shemp left for a solo career, Moe suggested their youngest brother, Jerome, who became Curly. In 1934 Moe, Larry and Curly left Healy and signed with Columbia Pictures as the Three Stooges. Their first short, Woman Haters, appeared that year, and over the next twenty-four years they made 190 two-reel comedies for the studio, ending in December 1957 by most accounts. Moe was the act's leader, with the bowl haircut and short temper that became its trademark. After Curly's illness forced him to stop performing in 1946, Shemp returned and stayed until his death in 1955.
When Columbia closed its shorts unit, Moe and Larry continued from 1958 with Joe DeRita, while the old shorts found a new audience on television. The act ended after Larry Fine suffered a stroke in 1970, during the filming of Kook's Tour.
Moe Howard died in Los Angeles on 4 May 1975, aged seventy-seven, while working on his autobiography; it was completed and published in 1977 as Moe Howard and the Three Stooges. In 1983 the Three Stooges received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
"His parents, second cousins from Kovno (Kaunas), emigrated to New York around 1890; he was born in Brooklyn in 1897, the fourth of five sons."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Kaunas (Kovno), Kovno Governorate (now Lithuania) — both parents
His parents, Solomon Horwitz and Jennie Gorovitz, were Lithuanian Jews from Kovno, then the capital of the Kovno Governorate of the Russian Empire, who emigrated to New York around 1890. Two of his brothers, Shemp and Curly, were also Stooges.
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Kaunas (Kovno), Kovno Governorate (now Lithuania) — both parents. At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.