It's a lot to keep track of, so here is a timeline of the major career and personal developments of the six Three Stooges.
Moe and Fine were always there, but four different stooges occupied the third slot, with changes necessitated by family tragedies, business considerations, or both. With Sean Hayes, Will Sasso, Chris Diamantopoulos, Jane Lynch. Under that name, they were active on the silver screen from the 1930s to the 1960s, with several personnel changes along the way. The Three Stooges: Directed by Bobby Farrelly, Peter Farrelly. With another Howard brother, known to the world as Curly, the newly-christened Three Stooges became household names. Money, and Healy's unstable behavior, drove Shemp out of the act, and later broke the Stooges off entirely. This time the three stooges encounter martians who want to take contol of an invention to destroy earth. When Larry Fine was added three years later, they became Ted Healy and his Stooges, with the standard routine being the Howards and Fine destroying whatever earnest performance Healy tried to deliver. In films, the stooges were commonly known by their actual first names. Their hallmark was physical farce and slapstick. According to Britannica, the act began when Samuel and Moses Horwitz - stage names Shemp and Moe Howard - joined forces with Moe's pal Ted Healy for a vaudeville comedy act in 1922. The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy team active from 1922 until 1970, best known for their 190 short subject films by Columbia Pictures that have been regularly airing on television since 1958. Not that there were ever more than three stooges at a time, at least in a professional sense.
