The Voice of Stooge-Dom : Joan Howard Maurer Carries the Torch for Moe (Her Dad), Larry and Curly

Joan Howard Maurer sat dutifully at her father’s feet in the den of his Hollywood Hills home, poring over piles of aging black and white photographs scattered on the rug.

With her father bundled in a blanket in his favorite easy chair, Maurer located snapshots one by one for him to identify.

At 77, Moe Howard--the pie-throwing, eye-poking, face-slapping ringleader and creative force of the Three Stooges comedy team for nearly 50 years--was working feverishly to complete his autobiography.

He also was dying of lung cancer.

The image of tough-talking, no-nonsense Moe--who never met a crowbar he didn’t twist around Curly’s head--on the verge of death is almost incomprehensible to a Stooges fan. Indeed, the reality was difficult to grasp even for Howard and his only daughter during his final days in May, 1975.

“We never discussed (that he was going to die),” Maurer said. “Although he did do something that gave me an inkling he knew he didn’t have long. He was the kind of man who couldn’t express his love with hugs and kisses or by saying, ‘I love you.’ But it was a month before my birthday, and in my birthday card he wrote, ‘My love for you knows no bounds.’

“That showed me.”

Just as poignantly, perhaps, Maurer realized that the time had finally come for her to follow her father’s lead.

Since Howard’s death, Maurer, 66, the eldest child of any of the six men who played the role of a Stooge, almost single-handedly has carried the Stooges’ torch as an ambassador for preserving their popularity, becoming an author, speaker and reluctant celebrity in the process.

But with her devotion has come tribulation. In June, Maurer was named co-defendant in a $5-million lawsuit filed by the heirs of two of her father’s former partners in comedy. Accounts of the mud-slinging dispute over Stooge profits, she said, have portrayed her as the off-screen equivalent of her father’s role in the movies: the bully who delighted in clobbering Curly and Larry into submission.

Yet Maurer plans to continue stumping for the Stooges, making personal appearances, corresponding with devoted fans and providing those who are bonkers over the slapstick trio with volumes of pleasurable material.

“I am not the heavy I’m being made out to be,” Maurer said by way of introduction. “I’ve gotten letters, fan mail, even a condolence card. . . . I started this. I’m going to finish it.”

Since the publication of her father’s book in 1977, Maurer has written four books on the subject of Howard, Fine and Howard, as the act sometimes was billed, including a well-received biography of Curly Howard, Moe’s enigmatic younger brother and overwhelmingly considered by fans to be the funniest Stooge.

Maurer is considering two more books, including a biography of Shemp Howard, Moe’s older brother, who assumed the role of “third Stooge” in 1946 after Curly suffered a career-ending stroke.

“We’d be delighted to see another book from Joan,” said Allan Wilson, executive editor of Carol Publishing of New York City, which has published all of Maurer’s works. “I’d say the Stooges books rank third (in sales) on our list behind the John Wayne and Marilyn Monroe stuff. Interest in the Three Stooges has reached cult-level status over the years, and Joan has been very pivotal in that.”

Pretty ironic, considering Maurer grew up with a distaste for Moe and Co.’s head-bopping brand of comedy. As a child, she rebelled against her father’s desire for her to become an actress. Even after marrying illustrator Norman Maurer--who became the Stooges’ writer, director, producer and manager during the final stage of their careers--her creative role was little more than that of her husband’s secretary.

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Shortly after her father’s death, Maurer and her husband, who died in 1986, renovated the attic of their Cheviot Hills home, creating a 200-square-foot Stooges archive packed to the rafters with rare photographs, documents and assorted artifacts her father had squirreled away.

There is a letter signed by Robert F. Kennedy, thanking Moe for the ceramic dish he made as a gift. There are photographs of countless movie stars shaking hands with a Stooge.

And there are the scripts--boxes and boxes of original screenplays from the Stooges’ 190 18-minute shorts produced by Columbia Pictures from 1934 to 1958. Two of Maurer’s books consist largely of Stooges scripts.

“Judging by some of the stuff I see in her books, a lot of the things she has are one of a kind,” said Gary Lassin, president of the 2,500-member Three Stooges Fan Club, based in Gwynedd Valley, Pa. “She’s become sort of the official voice of Stooge-dom.”

In 1983, Maurer delivered the keynote address when the Stooges were honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The same year, she talked Stooges on late-night television with David Letterman.

In 1990, Maurer addressed a group of educators at a conference in Toronto. The subject: “The Popularity of the Three Stooges in the 1980s.”

While renovating her attic, Maurer stumbled upon thousands of canceled checks bearing Howard’s signature. Advertised for $10 apiece in Rolling Stone magazine, fans quickly bought them and the Maurers donated $45,000 in proceeds to the City of Hope.

Soon, Maurer was receiving up to 300 pieces of fan mail a week, mostly from people who never got to shake hands with a Stooge. Surprised and a bit daunted by the attention, Maurer has remained grateful.

“My dad could not not answer a fan letter, so I proceeded to answer every one,” she said. “He used to say over and over again that the fans made them. Now, I don’t always have the time. Sometimes, I’ll write a short note and say, ‘Sorry, but I’m in the midst of a lot of things.’ And I am.”

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The legal battle between Stooges heirs is expected to be resolved in a trial that begins Dec. 13 in L.A. County Superior Court in Glendale.

Jean DeRita, widow of former Stooge Curly Joe DeRita, and Kris Cutler, granddaughter of original Stooge Larry Fine, allege that Maurer and her son, Jeffrey Scott, have hoarded profits that continue to come in from licensing of the Three Stooges. DeRita, who died July 3 at age 83, played the role of third Stooge from 1958 until the act disbanded in 1970.

Also named as a defendant is Norman Maurer Productions, which has distributed Three Stooges profits since 1958. Scott, 41, has owned NMP since 1989.

Attorneys for DeRita and Cutler argue that all profits--regardless of whose likeness is depicted as third Stooge together with Moe and Larry--should be distributed equally among the heirs of Howard, Fine and DeRita, based on an oral agreement the men made in 1959.

Attorneys for Maurer and Scott contend that such an agreement never existed. In addition, they argue that Moe Howard alone legally owned the Three Stooges name and transferred all rights to NMP. Scott said the company continually pays the heirs of all the Stooges--including DeRita and Cutler--money to which they are entitled, according to when the performers’ likenesses are used.

The case does not affect profits earned through Maurer’s writing. The Stooges’ heirs receive no money from any of the films, which are still shown on television throughout the country.

“(The Stooges) were partners,” Scott said. “But they agreed Moe was the senior partner who would handle all the business. That’s the long and the short of it.”

Attorneys Robert and Earl Benjamin, who represent their mother, Jean DeRita, and Cutler, claim that the arrangement changed shortly after their stepfather joined the act.

“They’re trying to project onto real life the role that Moe played in the movies,” Robert Benjamin said.

Maurer has been reluctant to grant interviews since the complaint was filed. On the advice of their attorneys, she and her son declined to discuss the suit.

In an interview with The Times in July, Jean DeRita said Howard assured her and her late husband: “Joe gets what I get and what Larry gets.”

Maurer concedes that her father would not be pleased with what is unfolding but says he would view matters no differently than his heirs do. Howard faced legal challenges from the estates of brothers Curly and Shemp, who died in 1952 and 1955, respectively. Both cases were settled out of court. But Howard forever felt betrayed, his daughter said.

“He assumed these things were settled. My dad was the kind of man where it was black or white. If he was your friend, he would kill himself for you. But if somebody did something to him that he felt was really unfair and he didn’t deserve it, he just never wanted to speak with them again.”

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She described her father as generous to a fault with friends and especially with family. On the road, he would ship his clothes home, then pack his luggage with gifts for his wife and children.

Yet growing up as the daughter of the founding Stooge wasn’t all gifts and laughs.

A workaholic, Howard had trouble making time for family. He and the Stooges often spent weeks away on tour. Maurer recalls that her father routinely came home from the studio still in costume and spent the evening behind closed doors, memorizing the following day’s script.

Encouraged by her father, young Joan appeared in two Stooges shorts as well as a handful of other productions. She was initially eager to please but never had the desire to perform. She married in 1947 at 20, and her career became “the mother of my two children.”

Until the final years of Howard’s life.

When Fine suffered a severe stroke in 1970, the Stooges, who began in vaudeville in the 1920s, pulled down the curtain for good. But Howard continued to work as a solo act, making the rounds on the talk-show circuit and speaking on college campuses across the country. And he was surprised by the positive reception.

During an appearance in Buffalo, N.Y., a young man approached the comedian with a cream pie, asking Howard to do him the honor of shoving the pastry in his face. Both shocked and touched, Howard happily obliged.

With nearly all the Columbia shorts being rerun on television, the Stooges’ popularity was soaring. Publishers figured to capitalize with Howard touring to promote his autobiography--if he ever finished writing it.

When Howard died, only four months after the death of Fine, the manuscript wasn’t quite finished and many tasks needed to be completed. Scrapping the book was considered, but Maurer worked to tie up loose ends and publication went ahead.

“To my darling daughter Joan,” the book’s dedication reads, “without whose help there never would have been a book.”

Or such a surge in the Stooges’ popularity during the ‘80s? Maurer shuns any credit, but most Stooge fans probably would argue that credit is due.

“I just felt a responsibility,” Maurer said. “I think of it as an inheritance. Not an inheritance of money, but an inheritance of a whole generation of young people who really admired the Stooges. I think of it as being for my dad, but it’s for Larry and Curly, too.”