http://www.philly.com/dailynews/features/20070808_It_worked_out_Fine.htmlWHEN GARY LASSIN began dating his future wife, Robin, in the late '70s, she hinted that she was related to someone famous. Lassin was dubious.
"I thought it was going to be somebody totally uncool, like Lawrence Welk or Perry Como," he recalled. "But it turned out that she was related to Larry Fine of the [Three] Stooges."
The revelation not only clinched the relationship, it altered the course of Lassin's life. He bonded instantly with his grandfather-in-law Morris "Moe" Feinberg, the brother of Larry Fine, born Louis Feinberg at 3rd and South streets. (Jon's Bar and Grille occupies the site now and pays tribute to its past with a large outdoor mural of Larry playing violin.)
After Feinberg's death, Lassin assumed control of the Three Stooges Fan Club.
"Moe had two daughters and five granddaughters - no sons - and when I came into the family and took an interest, because I'd always loved the Stooges when I was a child, he took me under his wing and we formed a very close relationship. My grandfathers were dead at that point, so we naturally took to each other, and I started getting interested in collecting Stooges stuff."
That collection has since grown into the Stoogeum, a full-scale museum, tucked away in an office park in Gwynedd Valley, that's dedicated to the history and careers of the comic trio. The Stoogeum, launched in 2004, is open by appointment only, since Lassin maintains his day job as vice president of finance for a national mail-order gift catalog company.
"I open it almost every week for one kind of group or another," Lassin explained. "Ultimately, I'd like to have it open on regular hours - maybe not every day but a couple days a week - but I'm not quite there yet. I'm still sort of learning the museum business."
Tomorrow, the Three Stooges Fan Club will host a pair of two-hour shorts screenings at the Ambler Theater, emceed by Lassin. Attendees will be able to pick up a ticket for a Stoogeum visit from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday.
The Three Stooges were formed in 1925 by vaudeville comedian/actor Ted Healy. Fine and brothers Moe and Shemp Howard - nee Harry and Samuel Horwitz - were literally stooges for Healy, playing his dim-witted assistants in slapstick sketches.
After splitting with Healy, the Three Stooges starred in their own series of short films for Columbia Pictures, ultimately generating 190 shorts over 23 years. In the meantime, Shemp quit the group and was replaced by his younger brother Jerry, aka Curly.
Shemp rejoined the Stooges after Curly's death. Later, Joe Besser and "Curly Joe" DeRits filled the third slot.
Lassin was inspired to build the Stoogeum after his wife had a health scare. Though she fully recovered, "I started thinking, 'What if it was me facing the possibility of my number getting called soon? What would I regret not having done with my life?' I knew what I had to do," he recalled.
"I knew it was going to be a lot of work, and being a naturally lazy person it would have been easy not to do it, but this sort of spurred me on. Some people are meant to do brain surgery, some people are meant to serve the public by running for office, and other people are meant to be the curator of a Stooges museum. This is my calling."
Visitors are inevitably shocked upon entering the Stoogeum - after being greeted by the Stooges' trademark "Hello" in three-part harmony - at the sheer scale and thoroughness of the place.
The fact of an appointments-only museum, set off the beaten track and built upon one fan's private collection, conjures images of a simple display case in a basement. But the Stoogeum's three stories contain an exhaustive overview of the Stooges' lives, careers and impact, from personal memorabilia to costumes and posters from their films, and a head-spinning array of merchandising.
"I didn't want to have to redo it over and over," Lassin said. "I wanted to do it right the first time."
To that end, he hired the Center City exhibit planning and design firm Ueland Junker McCauley Nicholson. The museum also features a large mural of Moe, Larry, Curly and Shemp painted by David McShane, also responsible for the Larry mural at Jon's.
Frank Reighter, a retired Acme Markets stock clerk who has organized fan club meetings and Stooges conventions along with Lassin, insists that visitors don't necessarily need to appreciate the Stooges to enjoy the Stoogeum.
"My wife, who's not the fan that I am, totally enjoys it because of the completeness and the variety of what's in the collection," Reighter said. Visitors "can go see a little historical society-type collection of everything and anything to do with the Three Stooges, almost from birth to the years past their death."
Lassin's favorite piece from the collection is Shemp's discharge from the Army. He likes it for three reasons:
"Number one, it's the oldest known Stooges document in the world, from 1918; second, it's signed 'Samuel Horwitz,' which is incredibly rare - you almost never see any kind of document that's signed with his real name; and third, on the back it has his medical condition when discharged from the Army: nocturnal enuresis, which means bed-wetting.
"A lot of Stooge scholars are aware that Shemp was discharged for bed-wetting, and here's the actual piece of paper that documents it."
Inevitably, though, Lassin finds that many visitors' favorite part of the Stoogeum is the 85-seat theater where the classic shorts are on constant display.
"Oftentimes, I'll see a grandfather, a father, and a son all sitting in the Stoogeum's theater, all laughing at the same thing, which is kind of amazing when you think about it," Lassin said. "What else on TV or in movies today can have three generations from the same family all sitting and enjoying the same thing?" *
Send e-mail to bradys@phillynews.com.
Three Stooges shorts screening, Ambler Theater, 108 E. Butler Ave., Ambler, 6 and 8:15 p.m. tomorrow, $8, 215-345-7855,
www.amblertheater.org. For more information on the Stoogeum, e-mail Gary Lassin at Garystooge@aol.com.
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