Open main menu
Home
Random
Recent changes
Special pages
Community portal
Preferences
About Wikipedia
Disclaimers
Incubator escapee wiki
Search
User menu
Talk
Dark mode
Contributions
Create account
Log in
Editing
Shemp Howard
(section)
Warning:
You are not logged in. Your IP address will be publicly visible if you make any edits. If you
log in
or
create an account
, your edits will be attributed to your username, along with other benefits.
Anti-spam check. Do
not
fill this in!
==Early life== Howard was born Samuel Horwitz on March 11, 1895 in [[Bensonhurst]], [[Brooklyn]], New York.<ref name="Mar11">{{cite web|url=http://threestooges.net/forums/gallery/9_11_03_11_8_19_15.jpg|title=Shemp's Birth Certificate|publisher=Threestooges.net|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131215055306/http://threestooges.net/forums/gallery/9_11_03_11_8_19_15.jpg|archive-date=December 15, 2013|access-date=February 2, 2014}}</ref> He was the third of five Horwitz brothers born to [[Lithuanian Jewish]] parents Solomon Horwitz (1872β1943) and Jennie Horwitz (nΓ©e Gorovitz; 1870β1939). His parents, who were second cousins, were from [[Kaunas]] and spoke the [[Yiddish dialects|Litvak dialect]] of [[Yiddish]]. They married in 1888 and two years later immigrated to New York City. They initially lived with Jennie's brother Julius in Manhattan before eventually moving to Brooklyn, where they started their family. He had two older brothers, Isadore "Irving" (1891β1939) and Benjamin Jacob "Jack" (1893β1976). His two younger brothers were Moses "Moe" (1897β1975) and Jerome "Curly" (1903β1952).<ref name="kearns">{{cite book |last1=Kearns |first1=Burt |title=Shemp!: The Biography of The Three Stooges' Shemp Howard, The Face of Film Comedy |date=1 October 2024 |publisher=Rowman & Littlefield |isbn=978-1-4930-7422-8 |pages=1β3 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=2ikREQAAQBAJ&dq=three+stooges+Kaunas&pg=PA1 |access-date=12 August 2024 |language=en}}</ref> Howard, who was named Samuel after his mother's grandfather, [[Shmuel]], was known as Sam. However, his mother's thick accent left her unable to articulate the name Sam. Instead she pronounced it as ''Shem'' and then ''Shemp'', the latter of which stuck as his nickname.<ref name="kearns"/>
Edit summary
(Briefly describe your changes)
By publishing changes, you agree to the
Terms of Use
, and you irrevocably agree to release your contribution under the
CC BY-SA 4.0 License
and the
GFDL
. You agree that a hyperlink or URL is sufficient attribution under the Creative Commons license.
Cancel
Editing help
(opens in new window)