Porcupine!
Larry Fine was born on this date in 1902. It’s been scientifically proven that all men know who Larry Fine is. For the benefit of the rest of you, Larry Fine was the bushy-haired, reactive Stooge. You know, the guy who stood there and mostly underplayed as Moe slapped the hell out of Curly. Until he himself became collateral damage.
Fine was born Louis Feinberg at 3rd and South Streets in Philadelphia. The son of a watch repairman and jewelry shop owner, he was encouraged to take up the violin to counteract the effects of an acid burn, which damaged the muscles in his forearm when he was boy. The acid had been used by his father to test jewelry for gold content. Young Larry was about to drink the stuff, when his father slapped it away.
Larry showed such dedication to the violin that his parents wanted to send him to study the instrument at a conservatory in Europe, but with the outbreak of World War I, he remained in Philadelphia. He took up boxing to further strengthen his arm and won his only professional fight, before his father put a stop to it.
Larry brought his violin to the vaudeville circuit. It was there that he met Shemp Howard and the problematic Ted Healy. Healy, who was a raging alcoholic and notoriously abusive, would eventually come to a bad end under mysterious circumstances, possibly at the hands of Wallace Beery (the original onscreen “Champ”). These days, Healy is remembered, if at all, as the man who introduced The Three Stooges.
Shemp was looking to take a break from Healy’s act for a few months, so he asked Larry if he might be interested in being a substitute “stooge.” The pay was good (Healy offered him an extra ten dollars a week if he would “throw that fiddle away”), so Larry was amendable.
At first, he was tossed in with Bob Pinkus and Sam “Moody” Braun. Once Shemp returned, however, Larry, Shemp, and Shemp’s brother Moe – who had worked with Healy from the beginning – were brought together for the first time.
Shemp would depart to pursue a solo career in film, working with W.C. Fields, Fatty Arbuckle, and Abbott and Costello. He was replaced by his and Moe’s younger brother, Jerome – better known as Curly.
The reconfigured Stooges followed Healy to the big screen. Soon Healy was being groomed by MGM for a career as a solo comedian. The Stooges signed their own contract with Columbia and left their abrasive former boss in the dust. From the mid-1930s through the late-‘40s, The Three Stooges were the movies’ most popular short subject attractions. Shemp would return to the team after Curly suffered a stroke in 1946.
Larry, Philadelphia’s native Stooge, is commemorated in a mural near his birthplace at 3rd & South. We’re coming up on the 20th anniversary of the original mural’s dedication on October 26, 1999. The mural was overpainted with another Larry mural in 2006.
While we’re on the subject of boxers and violinists, Curly is unstoppable in his ascent to the championship, thanks to Larry’s stirring rendition of “Pop Goes the Weasel,” in “Punch Drunks” (1934):
Happy birthday, Larry Fine!
PHOTO: Larry, as immuralized in 2006