Biography for
Larry Fine (I) More at IMDbPro »

Date of Birth

5 October 1902, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA

Date of Death

24 January 1975, Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, USA (massive stroke)

Birth Name

Louis Feinberg

Nickname

Porcupine

Height

5' 4" (1.63 m)

Mini Biography

Larry began performing as a violinist at a young age. During his teenage years, he earned his living as a singer and boxer. At 18, Larry began working vaudeville with "The Haney Sisters and Fine" and in 1925, he joined Ted Healy and Moe Howard in the act that would eventually become The Three Stooges. Fine made more than 200 films before a stroke forced him to retire in 1970.

IMDb Mini Biography By: Michael J. Bauman < mbauman@acsu.buffalo.edu>

Spouse

Mabel Fine

(22 January 1926 - 30 May 1967) (her death) 2 children

Trade Mark

Always played the middle stooge with a receeding hairline and bushy unkempt hair. While he was not dominating as Moe or as distinctive as Curly or his replacements, his relative normality allowed him to play the necessary straight man to the others.

His trademark autograph was "Sincerely, Larry Fine"

Trivia

Larry of The Three Stooges.

As a child, Larry spilled a bottle of a powerful acid, badly burning his left arm. Doctors recommended that he take violin lessons as therapy to strengthen the damaged muscles. At age ten, he played a solo piece, backed by the Howard Lanin Orchestra. His parents even considered sending him to Europe to study music, but they decided against this when World War I began.

When Larry joined the Stooges, Ted Healy offered him a salary of $90 a week and an extra $10 if he threw away the violin.

During his 40 year film career, Larry only appeared in one film that didn't also feature fellow Stooge Moe Howard. That film is Stage Mother (1933).

Interred at Forest Lawn, Glendale, California, USA, in the Freedom Mausoleum, Sanctuary of Liberation.

Larry's final concert appearance was at Loara High School in Anaheim, California on March 2, 1974.

Father of actress Phyllis Fine.

After Columbia shut down its shorts department, the Stooges took their act on the road. What they didn't know was that they had found a renewed popularity thanks to television. Larry's sister said when the train pulled into some town, there was a mob of people waiting. Larry wondered who the V.I.P. was; they had no idea the crowd of people waiting was for them.

Larry's face was so calloused on one side from all of the years of being slapped, it was all but numb!.

Father-in-law of Don Lamond, who appeared in several Stooges full-length features and also hosted the local Three Stooges Television Show in Los Angeles, California, in the late 1950s and early '60s (which helped give The Three Stooges careers a renaissance).

Has a mural painted of him on a building at 3rd and South Streets in South Philadelphia.

When Joe DeRita was brought into The Three Stooges (as "Curly Joe"), Moe wanted to make him simply an employee. It was Larry who insisted that he be made a full equal partner. Larry reportedly threatened to quit unless Joe was treated fairly.

After his stroke, he never performed again.

Published a memoir in 1973 titled "A Stroke Of Luck," now rare.

Is portrayed by Evan Handler in The Three Stooges (2000) (TV)

When first approached to work for the Stooges, he was performing at the Rainbow Gardens nightclub, under contract to Fred Mann. A few nights after being approached, the police closed the Rainbow Gardens for violating the Prohibition laws, and Fred Mann committed suicide. Now free of his contract, Larry joined the Stooges.

Personal Quotes

[to Ted Healy, who said he'd pay $100 for his act but to "forget the violin"] For $100, I'll forget everything!

Salary

The Three Stooges in Orbit (1962)	$50,000 +50% of profits (split with Moe Howard and Joe DeRita)
Have Rocket, Will Travel (1959)	$30,000 +25% of profits (split with Moe Howard and Joe DeRita)
Woman Haters (1934)	$1,000 split with Curly Howard and Moe Howard)

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