Paul Howard, Son of Stooge Moe Howard, Dies at 91 in Manhattan

Paul Howard, the only son of Three Stooges frontman Moe Howard, died earlier this week in Manhattan. He was 91.

He was born two blocks from where he died, in the Yorkville section of Manhattan. That kind of symmetry a scriptwriter would reject.

Howard spent his life as the guardian of his father's legacy. He appeared at Stooges conventions and fan events for decades, meeting successive generations of devotees and trading family stories and firsthand memories of Moe Howard, the bowl-haired disciplinarian of the act.

What did he leave on screen?

In 2015, Paul Howard hosted the docuseries "Hey Moe, Hey Dad!," a nine-episode chronicle of The Three Stooges built from archival footage, family accounts and interviews with relatives of all the principals — Moe Howard, Larry Fine, Curly Howard, Shemp Howard and Curly Joe DeRita. C3 Entertainment, Inc. produced and distributed the series, which now streams on The Three Stooges+ on YouTube. Celebrity fans Whoopi Goldberg, Billy West and Leonard Maltin appeared among the interviewees.

How did Moe Howard greet his son's arrival?

Howard's niece, Tessa Maurer, shared an excerpt from her mother Joan Howard Maurer's book "Growing Up Stooge" recounting Paul's birth. Moe, she wrote, "always wanted a son; someone he could take fishing and with whom he could play baseball." On learning of the pregnancy in late 1934, he quipped: "Honey, if it's a boy, they'll have to drag me out of the gutter, I'll be so drunk."

Paul was born on July 8, 1935, at Doctor's Hospital in New York, timed by his mother Helen to an eastern vaudeville tour. Moe was on stage that day with Larry and Curly at the Metropolitan Theatre in Boston. Helen's telegram read: "IT'S A GORGEOUS 8 POUND BOY BORN NINE FORTY-FIVE AM. KEEP OUT OF THE GUTTER…LOVE= HELEN."

"Dad, who did not drink, was drunk with glee," Joan wrote.

What happened days after the birth?

The aftermath played like one of the shorts. Several days later, Moe crashed a rented car into a cement lamppost in a Manhattan rainstorm, smashing the windshield and cutting his face. His sister-in-law Aunt Clarice, seven months pregnant and riding in the back with Uncle Harry Seiden, went into labor on the spot. Her water broke as Moe sat bleeding. He laughed hysterically. "This only happens in a Stooge comedy."

Clarice delivered her daughter Carole two months prematurely. Moe, sporting a black eye, explained himself to his wife with a joke: "This didn't happen on stage stooging around."

Who survives him?

Howard is survived by his wife, Joanne, and a daughter, Jennifer.

His death closes a living link to the family behind the act. The archives, the docuseries and a devoted YouTube audience remain — the Stooges' afterlife, it turns out, needs no curator any longer.