Okay, it's only a mere two months later....
I think that unless someone as anal as I writes a biography of the Stooges, no matter how great a book is, you'll always think, "Well, what if they'd gone into more detail about the day-to-day grind of making shorts", or gone into more detail about their lives before the Stooges or behind the scenes (family life). But even with those imaginary complaints, hands down, this is the best of the best and blows each and every one of the other books out of the water. To see the letters in which Larry describes his new book (this one) and the horrors of how Stroke of Luck was received is fascinating.
The information about his family life was especially interesting for me (because I'm nosy as hell and I like to see what makes people 'tick'), and I finally got the answers I was waiting for about Larry's life after Mabel died. I was also interested in how the Stooges were doing at the time of his stroke--the Stooges of the 1970's continues to be a point of interest for me, and even though this period was not that long ago (considering), we still don't know much about it. Did they just disappear from the face of the earth? They were still doing personal appearance tours, etc., so they were still sort of in the public eye. It was also interesting to compare and contrast Moe's autobiography with this book--a couple of things don't exactly match up, but that's expected.
A quote toward the end of the book concerning a possible appearance on the Mike Douglas show, "And he's (Moe) advertised as 'The last of the remaining Stooges.' They've got me written off." was both sad and fascinating. It was a different spin on things--old age, being in the public eye, etc. that really weren't mentioned in any of the other books, which made it seem that Larry was attempting to get well enough to perform again. This book mentions nothing of the kind, which leads me to wonder if Moe wasted much time thinking that Larry could perform again, or if he was thinking about bringing in a replacement even before the other books mentioned it. Reading between the lines (using
Make Mine Manila as a guide), I'm assuming that a couple of months after Larry's stroke, Moe was already considering asking Emil to join the act.
The fact that some of the interviews were taped (especially the one leading up to the quote above) is fascinating--what I wouldn't give to hear those tapes. I think what I enjoy most about that section is the realness of it. The new reincarnation of Stooges sucked (the fact that they were put together to complete the scheduled performances is ignored); Larry's gripes about the brevity of Moe's visits (yet wishing he'd visit more and stay longer); Moe's various appearances at colleges (and the fact that he was paid much more than Larry), and other points gives a different view of how they really were.
A point I wanted more explanation on was why Moe wanted to "get away from Norman." It was already known that the 1971 movie was/would be financed questionably, and we know what happened with Blazing Stewardesses, so was this a case of Norman being so gung-ho about making a movie, ANY movie, to get the Stooges in the public eye that he was willing to look the other way on a few things? (I'm definitely not saying Norman was a criminal). Unfortunately, we'll probably never know.
The pictures were great, and once again, there were enough pictures of the latter-era Stooges to shut me up--the pictures and stories of Larry, his girlfriend, and Jim Malinda gave an interesting look (especially one of them!
) into that period. The portions about the local Stooge shows dragged on for me, but only because I'm not very fond of the "child friendly" Stooges--kids liked them before the 60's, even with all the "violence."
All in all, it's been a book that's been 33 years in the making, and it's wonderful to know that this was what Stroke of Luck was supposed to have been, and not the pile of hot, poorly written ass that it turned out to be. Definitely at the top of the list! Even though it sounds like I'm a conspiracy nut (or a Forrester!), I thoroughly enjoyed this book and would recommend it to anyone, whether they were a Stooge nut or just interested in reading biographies in general.
Apologies for the length!
