Editing Larry Fine (section)

== The Three Stooges ==

Fine joined Moe Howard and his brother Shemp in Ted Healy's vaudeville act in 1925, beginning the partnership that would continue for nearly fifty years. When Shemp left the act and was replaced by younger brother Curly, the classic Three Stooges lineup formed—Moe as the abusive leader, Curly as the childlike victim, and Larry as the equally abused middleman whose reactions balanced the extremes. Their transition to Columbia Pictures shorts in 1934 began the film career that would produce nearly 200 short films.<ref name="fleming"/>

The Stooges' comedy, built on eye pokes, face slaps, and elaborate physical punishment, created a style that critics dismissed but audiences loved. Their shorts, which played before feature films in theaters throughout America, made them recognizable to generations of viewers who encountered their work in movie palaces and later on television. Larry's role—receiving abuse from Moe while witnessing Curly's (and later Shemp's and Joe Besser's and Curly Joe's) even greater suffering—required physical comedy skills that his earlier musical training had not specifically developed.<ref name="solomon"/>

His violin playing, incorporated into numerous shorts, provided moments of relative calm amid the chaos, his competence on the instrument contrasting with the incompetence his character displayed otherwise. The frizzy hair that became his visual signature, reportedly achieved through specific styling techniques, created recognizability that decades of shorts reinforced. His fifty years with the act—longer than either Moe's leadership or any other member's participation—demonstrated commitment that other performers might not have maintained.<ref name="fleming"/>