Ted Healy, the Man Behind the Stooges Quiz

Answer: Lee Nash, Houston, TX.

Nash, who became Ted Healy, was the son of a Houston buisnessman who entered vaudeville in his early teens. The other names are those of W.C. Fields characters! (And Fields was born in Philadelphia!)

Answer: A German Shepherd

Healy, like Curly Howard, was a dog fancier and he first partnered with his German Shepherd. Joe Besser didn't join the Stooges until the late Fifties, well after Healy's death.

Answer: 1909

Healy first met the Horowitz brothers on a Brooklyn beach. Moe and Shemp were the first to team with Healy; Curly was forbidden by his mother to join and didn't become part of the team until later.

Answer: Earl Carroll's Vanities

Ironically, Moe and Shemp left Healy so he recruited new Stooges when he joined the Vanities, closer to burlesque than the follies. "Hellzapoppin" starred Olson and Johnson and "The Cocoanuts" was a Marx Brothers show.

Answer: Betty Braun

Braun was a dancer-comedienne who joined Healy on stage and in life before she divorced him because of his hard-partying character. Stevens was Barbara Stanwyck, Levy was Paulette Goddard and Ockleman was Veronica Lake!

Answer: Alcoholism and depression

Healy suffered depression throughout his life and turned to booze for comfort, as no treatment for depression existed in those days.

Answer: True

Healy once tried rifling Capone's safe to get the mobster's attention. Capone wanted them to perform at his nightclub in return. Healy was thrilled, but the Stooges (Moe and Shemp, who reunited with Healy and newcomer Larry Fine) were so scared of Capone they could hardly act!

Answer: MGM

Actually, their first movie was at Twentieth-Century-Fox, a 1930 farce called "Soup to Nuts" (written by Rube Goldberg). Afterwards, they signed with MGM. But soon Moe. Larry and Curley, sick of the often drunken Healy, struck off on their own and signed with Columbia.
(Their next film for Fox was 1961's "Snow White and the Three Stooges" with the last Stooge, "Curley Joe" DiRita.)

Answer: Fred Astaire, Joan Crawford and Clark Gable

Healy and the Stooges co-starred with Crawford, Gable and Astaire (in his big-screen debut; he wouldn't return to MGM until the late 40's) in the 1933 MGM musical "Dancing Lady". They also made a brief series of shorts for the studio. (The Ritz Brothers worked at 20th Century Fox.)

Answer: Bonnie Bonnell

Comedienne Bonnell appeared with Ted and the boys in their MGM shorts, especially the early Technicolor short "Nertsery Rhymes".

Answer: Thelma Todd

Today, Todd is better known for her mysterious 1935 death than her film work. Rumors flew that her gangster husband, Pat DiCicco, had her murdered because of her infidelities.

Answer: Betty Hickman

Hickman was a UCLA student when she met Healy, who swore off affairs with actresses after Todd's death. She provided the stability he needed and the child he wanted but sadly wouldn't live to see grow up.

Answer: False

It was a son, John Jacob Healy, that Betty gave Ted, the child he always wanted. But Healy would not live to see his son grow.

Answer: He was beaten and died the next day

Ted was celebrating his son's birth in the Trocadero club in a drunken spree on December 20, 1937; outside he got into a brawl and suffered fatal injuries. He died the next day.

Answer: Wallace Beery

Healy got into a drunken brawl with the pugnacious Beery, who was joined by DiCicco (who seemingly nursed a grudge against Healy for the latter's affair with Todd) and a young Albert Broccoli (well before he became the producer of the James Bond series). A sad end to the life of the comic who founded the best-known comedy trio of all time.