Moe "Might even own the studio by now"? "...And affluent"? Sure they were successful, but they were not the highest paid entertainers at Columbia. They had to borrow sets from whatever other movies Columbia was working on at the time. I don't know about their salaries after they were resigned by Columbia, but during their first run at Columbia, they never got a raise, as most fans know.
In Moe's case, yes, he was "affluent." He invested wisely in real estate in Toluca Lake's Riverside Dr. business stretch, as well as some selected properties in and around Hollywood and the Valley. The move to an upscale area of the Hollywood Hills in 1954, from his Toluca Lake house (make no mistake, also a very nice neighborhood), was due more to his personal earnings, not his professional income.
The Stooges not receiving a raise is a myth, an over-generalization (largely started by Moe himself in later interviews) that's been repeated so often, it's regarded as fact. But, the team started out making $20,000 split three ways for a year's worth of shorts in 1935. By the mid-1950s, Moe and Larry
each received $20,000, the equivalent of $2500/wk for an 8-week production cycle... Besser received $3500/wk.
But taking into account the 20-year economic growth between Depression 1930s and post-war 1950s, a change of $6,667 to $20,000 each, for screen stars who earned millions for their studio... it's easy to understand how Moe (and Larry) often over-generalized that they never received a raise in 24 years.
