Movies

From Joe's first starring feature film, Hey, Rookie (1944).

In all, Joe Besser appeared in 28 feature films from 1940 to 1978, including three starring feature films, Hey, Rookie (1944),  Eadie Was a Lady (1945) and Talk About a Lady (1946) for Columbia Pictures. His first film appearance was as Siggie Landers in Hot Steel (1940) starring Richard Arlen and Andy Devine for Universal Pictures.

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 (who him he later replaced as a the third stooge in The Three Stooges comedy team) 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, a joke writer, in Marilyn Monroe's Let's Make Love (1960).

(A complete listing of Joe's solo movie appearances may be found in Joe's updated and enlarged autobiography, Once a Stooge, Always a Stooge, published by Moonwater Press, available in hardcover, paperback and Kindle editions. His autobiography is also available in audiobook and e-book.)