The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time

Editorial Review of The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time by Jeff Forrester, Tom Forrester, Joe Wallison , courtesy of Amazon.com

Book Description of The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time

 Did Stooge favorites Curly, Shemp and Larry suffer cerebral hemorrhages as a result of being repeatedly hit on the head? What role did the Stooges’ creator Ted Healy play in the mysterious death of comedienne Thelma Todd? Was Healy himself fatally beaten by a group of tough guys (including actor Wallace Beery and gangster Pat DiCicco) during a nightclub brawl on Hollywood’s Sunset Strip? What did Beery’s boss, MGM president Louis B. Mayer, do to cover up the incident? And what was the connection between the New York Mafia, Columbia Pictures rajah Harry Cohn, and the Stooges themselves? These and many other fascinating questions are addressed in this definitive look at the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time.

From the Author of The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time

This book has been a work-in-progress for over two decades. Our favorite recent addition is the Introduction by the great Mousie Garner (age 92 and still kickin’), one of the main voices of the book and the first comedian EVER to appear on television:

“I’ve been in show business practically all my life. I got my start as a kid during the First World War, entertaining soldiers at training camps and then later performing in theaters. My Dad managed a theater in Washington, D.C., and he helped me put together a musical routine with my cousin Jack Wolf that later evolved into a professional vaudeville act. Shortly after we joined Jack Pepper, we were hired by General David Sarnoff of RCA to appear in an experimental television program, one of the first ever, broadcast live from NBC-TV’s original studio in Schenectady, New York.

This was in 1928, and in those days, the only people with TV sets were scientists and technicians, so only a handful of Earthlings even saw the thing. But they tell me I am the first comedian ever to appear on television, thanks to that early broadcast. And when I appeared on NBC-TV in Los Angeles recently, they told me I’ve been performing on television longer than any other human being in history. All of that is well and good, but as far as I’m concerned, the most important thing I ever did in the entertainment business was working as a Stooge for the late Ted Healy.

Ted Healy

Ted Healy created The Three Stooges, and I became one of his boys in 1930 when he was auditioning comedians for a Broadway show called The Gang’s All Here, produced by Billy Rose. I showed up at the theater where the auditions were being held, and when I offered my hand to Healy, he responded by giving me a smack on the head! I had never seen this type of comedy before, so I jumped on him, grabbed his nose and bit his ear in retaliation. “Get in the corner, you’re hired,” said Healy, and I never looked back.”

MOUSIE GARNER (Los Angeles, California, 2002)

About the Authors of The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of the Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time

The Forrester Brothers are the most prolific Stooge authors of all time. This is the fifth and most comprehensive book in their series of five about The Three Stooges. Preceeded by “The Stooge Chronicles,” “The Stoogephile,” “Stoogemania,” and “The Stooges’ Lost Episodes,” “The Three Stooges: The Triumphs and Tragedies of The Most Popular Comedy Team of All Time” has been hailed by critics as the best and most accurate biography of The Three Stooges ever written. Brothers Jeff and Tom Forrester are both natives of Chicago and graduates of Northern Illinois University where they received Bachelor of Arts Degrees in Journalism. The Forrester Brothers moved to Los Angeles in the 1980s, where they continue to write, produce, edit and direct feature-length film, television and home video productions – including their latest documentary “Ted Healy and His Stooges” to be released by Donaldson Books in 2005.