Louis Feinberg Born: October 5, 1902 Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Died January 24, 1975 (aged 72) Woodland Hills, California Spouse: Mabel Haney (1926-1967)Life and Career Fine was born to a Jewish family as Louis Feinberg in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, at the corner of 3rd and South Streets. His father, Joseph Feinberg, and mother, Fanny Lieberman, owned a watch repair and jewelry shop. The building there is now a restaurant which is called the birth place of Larry Fine but is not actually where he was born. The upstairs houses a small Stooge museum. When Larry was a child he burned his arm with some acid that his father used to test whether or not gold was real. Mistaking it for a cool drink Larry had the bottle to his lips when his father noticed and slapped it from his hand, splashing his forearm with acid. Later Larry received violin training to help strengthen his damaged muscles and this talent would be observed in many of the Stooges' films. He became quite proficient on the instrument, and his parents wanted to send him to a European music conservatory, but the outbreak of World War I prevented him from going. In scenes where all three are playing fiddles, only Larry is actually playing his instrument; the others are pantomiming. To further strengthen his arm, Larry took up boxing as a teenager. He fought and won one professional bout. His career as a pugilist was stopped by his father, who was opposed to Larry's fighting in public.As Larry Fine, he first performed as a violinist in vaudeville at an early age. In 1925, he met Moe Howard and Ted Healy. Howard and his brother Shemp had been working as audience stooges for Healy. Shemp left soon after to attempt a solo career and was in turn replaced by another brother, Curly. Larry's trademark bushy hair came out, according to rumor, from his first meeting with Healy, in which he had just wet his hair in a basin, and as they talked, it dried oddly. Healy told him to keep the zany hairstyle and, according to a 1973 radio interview with Moe: ...So Healy said 'Would you like to be one of the stooges and make three instead of two?' And Larry said 'Yes, I would love that.' Healy said 'I'll give you ninety bucks a week.' 'Fine.' He also said, 'I'll give you an extra ten dollars a week if you throw that fiddle away.'Beginning in 1933, The Three Stooges made 206 short films, and several features, with their most prolific period featuring the characters of Larry, Moe and Curly. Their career with Healy was marked by disputes over pay, film contracts, and Healy's drinking and abuse. They left Healy for good in 1934.In many of the Stooge shorts, Fine did more reacting than acting, staying in the background and providing the voice of reason between the extreme characterizations of Moe and Curly. (in the short Three Loan Wolves, Larry was pressed into service to replace an ailing Curly, who was unable to perform as the lead stooge.) After Curly left the act, Larry shared screen time equally with his two partners.But in the earliest Stooge two-reelers (and occasionally the later ones) Larry indulges in utterly nutty behavior. He would liven up a scene by improvising some random remark or ridiculous action. In the hospital spoof Men in Black, Larry wields a scalpel and chortles, Let's pluck him... and see if he's ripe! In Disorder in the Court, a tense courtroom scene is interrupted by Larry breaking into a wild Tarzan yell. Of course, after each of his outbursts, Moe would gruffly discipline him. It is said that Larry had developed a callus on one side of his face from being slapped innumerable times by Moe over the years.Larry's on-screen goofiness was an extension of his own relaxed personality. Director Charles Lamont recalled, Larry was a nut. He was the kind of guy who always said anything. He was a yapper. Writer-director Edward Bernds remembered that Larry's suggestions for the scripts were often flaky, but would occasionally contain a good comic idea.Offstage, Larry was a social butterfly. He liked a good time and surrounded himself with friends. Larry and his wife, Mabel, loved having parties and every Christmas threw lavish midnight suppers. Larry was what some friends have called a yes man, since he was always so agreeable, no matter what the circumstances.Larry's devil-may-care personality carried over to the world of finance. He was a terrible businessman and spent his money as soon as he earned it. He would either gamble it away at the track or at high-stakes gin rummy games. In an interview, Fine even admitted that he often gave money to actors and friends who needed help and never asked to be reimbursed. Joe Besser and director Edward Bernds remember that because of his free spending, Larry was almost forced into bankruptcy when Columbia terminated the Three Stooges comedies in December 1957.Because of his profligate ways and his wife's dislike for housekeeping, Larry and his family lived in hotels first in the President Hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, where his daughter Phyllis was raised, then the Knickerbocker Hotel in Hollywood. Not until the late 1940s did Larry buy a wonderful Mediterranean home in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, California.The Stooges became a big hit in 1959 on television, when Columbia Pictures released a batch of the trio's films. The popularity brought the Stooges to a new audience and revitalized their careers. It also brought the Fines a steady source of income, which they sorely needed.On May 30, 1967, Fine's wife, Mabel, died of a sudden heart attack. Her death came nearly six years after the death of their only son, John, in a car accident on November 17, 1961. The couple's daughter, Phyllis, died of cancer at the age of 60 in 1988. John's wife, Christy (Kraus), died on October 26, 2007] after a lengthy illness. Final Acting Years and Death Returning to work, Fine and the Stooges were working on a new TV series entitled Kook's Tour in January, 1970, when Larry suffered a debilitating stroke that paralyzed the left side of his body. He eventually moved to the Motion Picture House, an industry retirement community in Woodland Hills, where he spent his remaining years.Fine was confined to a wheelchair during the last five years of his life. Like Curly Howard, Fine suffered several additional strokes before his death on January 24, 1975. He was entombed in Glendale's Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Liberation.He is sometimes erroneously listed as the father of sportscaster Warner Wolf, who is in fact the son of Jack Wolf, one of several other stooges who played in Ted Healy's vaudeville act at one time or another. He is, however, the father-in-law of actor and Los Angeles television personality Don Lamond, best known for hosting Stooges shorts on KTTV for many years.Posthumous fame * The Three Stooges have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for their contributions to Motion Pictures, at 1560 Vine Street in Hollywood, dedicated on August 30, 1983, with ex-stooge Joe Besser in attendance. * In the 2000 TV movie, Larry Fine was played by Evan Handler. * In a 2004 New Yorker feature on the Farrelly Brothers's attempt to write a script for a new Three Stooges movie, Peter Farrelly offered his theory of Stooge appreciation: Growing up, first you watched Curly, then Moe, and then your eyes got to Larry. Hes the reactor, the most vulnerable. Five to fourteen, Curly; fourteen to twenty-one, Moe. Anyone out of college, if youre not looking at Larry, you dont have a good brain. * On May 18, 2006, a mural was placed on the corner of 3rd and South Streets in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Larry Fine was born. Currently, the mural of Larry Fine stands over Jon's Bar and Grill, and a sign reads, Birthplace of Larry Fine.
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