Comedian Joe Besser, Three Stooges Member in the ‘50s, Dies at 80

Joe Besser, the rotund knockabout comic who played a succession of crazy characters in a long film and TV career but found his greatest satisfaction as Joe, the “Oooh, you crazy” of the Three Stooges, died Tuesday at age 80.

His longtime friend and publicist Jeff Lenburg said the least-abused of the Stooges (he asked not to be subjected to their usual brand of physical violence when he joined the group in 1955) was found in his North Hollywood home by a friend.

“He had been ill for some time and wouldn’t even see a doctor,” said Lenburg, who helped Besser complete a second autobiography, “Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge.”

Besser’s lifelong involvement with the world of entertainment began when he was 10 and working as an errand boy for a song plugger in his native St. Louis.

He ran away with magician Howard Thurston when he was a boy (stowed away in a trunk, he bragged to Richard Lamparski in one of the “Whatever Became of. . . ?” celebrity series).

And he broke into vaudeville about the time the original Three Stooges were conceptualized.

Those suicidal zanies were Morris (Moe) Horowitz, who later changed his last name to Howard; his brother Samuel (Shemp), and Larry Fineberg, who also called himself Larry Fine.

They began working with vaudeville headliner Ted Healy in 1922 before going out on their own. By the early ‘30s, Shemp had left in a pay dispute, and Jerome (Curly), another Horowitz brother, took over.

One was fat, dumb and bald; the second boasted a Buster Brown hair style and a dictatorial manner that would have been at home in the Reichstag; and the third boasted an effusion of wild hair growing from his ears instead of his head.

Shemp rejoined the act after Curly suffered a stroke in 1946; Shemp died nine years later. It was then that Besser was asked to join his old friends.

In a 1984 interview with The Times, Besser recalled that he agreed only after being assured that he would not be subjected to the physical abuse.

“I never was the type of comic to be hit by a pie. I was afraid for my eyes. So Larry said to me, ‘Don’t you worry, Joe. I’ll take the (heavy) hits for you.’ ”

Response to Being Hit

But no matter how light the hit, Joe’s response was always, “Not so h-a-a-a-a-rd.”

Besser was a Stooge for three years in what proved to be their final few feature films, and he was replaced by Joe De Rita, the last survivor of the Stooges.

The Stooges made more than 190 short films, almost all of which were reshown on television, and several feature-length films from 1930 through 1965.

Before becoming a Stooge, Besser worked as a comedian on Broadway, on radio and in motion pictures.

In the 1940s, his portrayal of an exasperated, whining child earned him a spot in Olsen and Johnson’s long-running Broadway show, “Sons o’ Fun,” a sequel to their legendary “Hellzapoppin.”

In the 1950s and ‘60s, Besser became a regular on several shows, including “The Ken Murray Show,” “The Joey Bishop Show” (he was building superintendent Jillson) and “The Abbott and Costello Show,” where he portrayed a malevolent brat called “Stinky.”

He made 250 television appearances during his career, joking with such comics as Milton Berle and Jerry Lewis. He appeared in more than 40 feature films, playing opposite such stars as Rock Hudson, Jackie Gleason and Bing Crosby.

Besser is survived by his wife of 56 years, Ernie, whom he called the first of two highlights in his career.

The second he said came in 1983 when he unveiled a star on Hollywood Boulevard dedicated to the Stooges, or “the boys,” as he always called them.