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When did Curly begin to slip?

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scribe8585:
When did it first appear that Curly was beginning to "lose it" ? As far as I can tell from my various Stooge books, he didn't suffer his first stroke until early 1945, but it seems to me like he began to slip a little bit before that. After watching Spook Louder and Crash Goes The Hash last night, I want to say sometime between spring of 43 and winter of 44.

Thoughts?

Baggie:
I'd agree with you there, some time around that. It was reported that by 1942, they had to stop or decrease their number of personal tours and shows because Curly couldn't handle it, and it was clear he was becoming ill. That's what I read anyhow.

kinderscenen:
As I recall from the last Forrester Bros. book, Shemp replaced Curly during some personal appearances as early as 1942. This surprised me, since while it does make sense--no one else had ever mentioned it.  It just appears that there's this big secret (or whatever you want to call it) during this time.  Of course, you don't want the world to know about Curly's health problems, but perhaps the secrecy (or "ignorance") of the problems just made things worse.  There are quite a few examples of performers (Elvis comes to mind) who should've been able to retire, or at least recouperate, before touring/filming again.

I can't seem to recall any shorts from 1942 in which Curly seemed to be "slipping", in fact, he seemed to be pretty much the usual Curly--perhaps I should look at the later '42 shorts.

Too bad there's no one out there who may have seen the 1942-era Shemp performing with Moe and Larry, or that there's no publicity (obviously) of it.

Sunday

Double Deal Decker:
He seemed ok in most of the 1943 shorts , "Dizzy Pilots" and "Dizzy Dectectives" are good examples.  I was unaware that Shemp had filled in for him in some live appearances asearly as 1942.  On film , it is easy to notice the start of his decline by the 1944 releases.

Watts Dee Matter:
Actually I can't tell in any of the shorts really if he was starting to slip, of course they all where older by the mid 40s anyway, I think Curly acted as he always did. We have to remember that Moe was 47, and Larry was 42, and Curly was 42, in 1945. When they started doing The Three Stooges shorts they were still in there 20's. As for Curly starting to slip, I personally don't think it is visible on any short he was in.

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