Emil Sitka; Character Actor in Stooges’ Films

Emil Sitka, 83, character actor who took pies in the face from the Three Stooges. Sitka came to Hollywood in 1936 and was cast by a talent scout in the Stooges’ film “Half-Wits Holiday” in 1947. Sitka played some 70 roles with the threesome, ranging from professor to butler to justice of the peace to eccentric scientist. He took the brunt of the Stooges’ physical comedy and was variously poked in the eye, bopped on the head, squirted with seltzer water and hit in the face with pies. In 1974, after Larry Fine suffered a stroke, Moe Howard asked Sitka to become a Stooge. But Howard died soon after that and the classic comedy act ended. On Friday in Camarillo of complications of a stroke.