Biography

Right: As the third stooge.

 

While the name Joe Besser may not be a household name, for six generations, he is best remembered for two famous roles: as a member of the iconic Three Stooges comedy team replacing Shemp Howard as the third stooge from 1957-1959 and as the malevolent brat “Stinky” on The Abbott and Costello Show TV series of the 1950s.

New generations have also discovered him in recent years in his regular role of Jillson, the henpecked and frustrated building superintendent, on The Joey Bishop Show TV series of the 1960s, thanks to the broadcast of these long lost episodes on cable TV channels as well as their release to DVD and free streaming on Tubi.com.

But these roles are just the tip of the iceberg. From the 1920s to the mid-1980s, Joe worked in virtually every medium including vaudeville, Broadway, stage, radio, motion pictures and television, including voicing popular Saturday morning animated cartoon series.

Left: As Stinky on The Abbott and Costello Show.

Born on August 12, 1907 in St. Louis, Missouri, Joe first honed his comedy craft when he worked as a bumbling assistant to the world-famous Thurston the Magician in the 1920s. With Thurston, he carved out success with his own act—that of a childlike sissy who brandished his foils with a flick of the wrist and such hilarious verbal assaults as “Ooh, you cr-a-a-zy you!” and “Not so f-a-a-s-t!” 

It was that character that first caught the nation by surprise with such hilarious antics on popular radio shows of the 1930s, making Joe an instant hit with audiences.

Joe left an indelible mark, making audiences howl with laughter on the Jack Benny, Milton Berle and Fred Allen radio shows. His success later led him to signing a contract with Columbia Pictures and to starring roles in three feature films-- Hey, Rookie, (1944) Eadie Was a Lady (1945) and Talk About a Lady (1946)--and his own short-subject series in the 1940s and 1950s.

His first feature film appearance was as Siggie Landers in Hot Steel (1940) starring Richard Arlen and Andy Devine for Universal Pictures.

Hollywood trade paper ad
announcing Joe's signing an    
exclusive movie deal with
Columbia Pictures.

Joe and his distinctive character and unmistakable voice as well as mannerisms were so well-known and extremely popular and recognizable to radio, movie and television audiences that voice actor Mel Blanc impersonated him in several Looney Tunes cartoon shorts of 1940s and 1950s, including Hollywood Canine Canteen (1946) as a tuba playing dog, Hollywood Daffy (1946) as an abrasive Keystone Kops-like security guard and Rabbit Fire (1951) as a huge elephant. 

Most memorable highlights of Joe's long film career include: playing Sheriff Sharkey Dolan opposite Marjorie Main and Percy Kilbride (Ma and Pa Kettle) and actor-singer-dancer Donald O'Connor in Feudin', Fussin,' and A-Fightin' (1948), cast with Shemp Howard in Abbott and Costello's Africa Screams (1949), being teamed with the Great One, Jackie Gleason, in The Desert Hawk (1950), cast in his first dramatic role in Bing Crosby's Say One for Me (1959), and playing another serious role, as a joke writer, in Marilyn Monroe's Let's Make Love (1960).

A favorite of the critics, Besser has rightly earned the title of most prolific third stooge because of his huge legacy without the Stooges: in all, he appeared in 28 feature films from 1940 to 1978, 11 short subjects of his own, and nearly 300 television appearances! 

That’s quite a career which also includes 56 known radio show appearances (as well as his own radio series, Tonight on Broadway) and stage and Broadway shows such as the immensely popular Sons O’ Fun starring Olsen and Johnson which catapulted him to stardom.

He also voiced more than 120 Saturday morning cartoon episodes which he truly enjoyed. His voice credits included the character Putty Puss in The Houndcats (1972), the bumbling genie Babu in Jeannie (1973), (inspired by the I Dream of Jeannie TV series) and Scooby's All-Star Laff-A-Lympics (reprising the role of Babu), and as Scare Bear in Yogi's Space Race (1978). 

Joe addresses over 3,000 fans at the 1983
Hollywood Walk of Fame Star unveiling.
To his left is Stooge author Greg Lenburg.
To his right is Jean DeRita, wife of Joe
DeRita.(Courtesy of OldShowBiz)

Although Joe suffered a minor stroke in 1979, he never stopped working. He continued doing voice over work for Saturday morning cartoons and made personal apperances. One of his final voiceover roles was tailor-made for him and unmistakably him as Cupid in 1983's My Smurfy Valentine special. 

Due to his stroke, Joe, at the advice of his doctor, made his health a priority by losing weight. His weight loss wasn't because he was ill.

Ironically, Besser had the distinct honor to unveil the Stooges’ Hollywood Walk of Fame star at a ceremony on August 30, 1983. His replacement as third stooge, Joe DeRita, was too ill to attend. His former Stooge partners, Moe Howard and Larry Fine, died in 1975. The unveiling set an attendance record with more than 3,000 fans on hand. It was, and still is, the largest attended unveiling in Walk of Fame history.

Less than four months after the ceremony, Joe wrote his autobiography with his publicists and longtime friends, Jeff and Greg Lenburg. Titled Not Just a Stooge, it was published in paperback on January 1, 1984 by Excelsior Books, a publishing company formed by the Lenburgs.

Four years later, his autobiography was retitled as Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge: A Comedian's Sentimental Look at His Life in Comedy and Years With The Three Stooges and published in hardcover on January 1, 1988 by Roundtable Publishing two months before Joe's untimely death. 

Joe's autobiography through the years: 1984, 1988, 1990 and 2021

Two years later, on January 1, 1990, the book was published posthumously under the same title in mass market paperback by Knightsbridge Publishing.

Thirty-one years later, the Lenburgs, who knew Joe best, lovingly retooled and published his autobiography by updating and expanding it with over 420 photographs under the title Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge: The Autobiography of Hollywood's Most Prolific Funnyman. Published by Moonwater Press (Jeff Lenburg's publishing company), the book is being sold, for the first time, in multiple formats: in hardcover, paperback and Kindle editions as well as in audiobook and e-book.)

Besser did have another honor, only posthumously: a Joe Besser Film Festival on June 9, 2013 at the Esquire Theater in St. Louis, Mo. where he was born and raised. The film festival was part of a campaign to raise awareness in St. Louis that Joe Besser is one of their very own and to perhaps get him a star on the St. Louis Walk of Fame.

Films shown at the festival which was strongly attended included a sampling of Besser’s solo shorts before he was a stooge, Fraidy Cats (1951) and Army Daze (1956). Stooges shorts shown featuring him as the third stooge were A Merry Mix-Up (1957), Flying Saucer Daffy (1958) and Sappy Bullfighters (1959).

Marquee of Joe Besser Film Festival in 2013.
Photo:Wearegeeks.com

In addition to achievements in show business, Joe also accomplished one other significant milestone in his life: he was married to the same woman for over 55 years. Ernie. He married her on November 18, 1932 and she was truly the love of his life.

Besser died of heart failure on March 1, 1988 in North Hollywood, Calif. at the age of 80.  His wife, Ernie, died on July 1, 1989 in Los Angeles, Calif. at the age of 88. They are interred at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, Calif.

Joe's grave marker reads, "Joe Besser / August 12, 1907 – March 1, 1988 / He Brought the World Love and Laughter," while Ernie's reads, "Ernestine Besser / March 14, 1900 – July 1, 1989 / In Loving Memory." 

Besser's Stooge partner Larry Fine is interred in a crypt at the Freedom Mausoleum, which is a short distance away from Joe's gravesite.

(Joe's updated and enlarged autobiography, Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge is available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle editions as well as in audiobook and e-book.)