Curly Joe DeRita was born Joseph Wardell in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 12, 1909. His father was a stage technician, and his mother was a professional stage dancer, and the three of them would often act on stage together during his early childhood. After taking his mother's maiden name DeRita, Curly Joe joined the Burlesque circuit during the 1920s. During World War 2, DeRita joined the USO and performed throughout Britain and France.
After Joe Besser left the act, Moe, who was familiar with DeRita's work, asked him to join. DeRita accepted and became the first non-Jewish member of the Stooges. Because of DeRita's resmblance to both Curly Howard and Joe Besser, he was renamed Curly Joe.
Because Columbia had shut down the shorts departments, the Stooges began making feature films. In the 60s the Stooges appeared in an animated series, and shot a live action pilot called Kook's Tour. In 1970, the Stooges ended when Larry suffered a stroke. Years later, Curly Joe attempted to form a new Three Stooges with two new actors replacing Larry and Moe, but the act failed and Curly Joe retired.
Curly Joe died on July 3, 1993.
1 comment:
So am I understanding all this correctly, that there were actually six different actors who played Stooges at various times? And that three of them were brothers, though at any given time, only two of the three brothers were ever Stooges at the same time?
I'd love to see a timeline, showing the dates when each of the various actors joined up and left the cast. Or maybe you've got this somewhere and I missed it.
Great blog!
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