Ted Healy

Ted Healy

Ted Healy (October 1, 1896 in Texas - December 21, 1937 in California; real name: Clarence Earnest Lee Nash) was an American vaudeville performer and actor. He is chiefly remembered today as the original employer of the Three Stooges, but had a successful career of his own.

In 1912, as teenagers, Lee Nash and his childhood friend Moe Howard joined the Annette Kellerman Diving Girls (a vaudeville act which included four boys). The job ended quickly, though, after an accident on stage, and Nash and Howard went their separate ways. Nash then developed a vaudeville act and adopted the stage name Ted Healy.

Healy's act was successful, and he soon expanded his role as a comedian and master of ceremonies. He added performers to his stage show, including his new wife Betty. When some of his acrobats quit in 1922, Moe Howard answered the advertisement Healy placed for replacements. Since Howard was not an acrobat, Healy cast his old friend as a stooge, someone who impersonated a member of the audience called on stage. Howard's appearance on stage ended with Healy losing his trousers.

Howard's brother Shemp joined the act soon after as a heckler, then Larry Fine joined in 1925. Healy's vaudeville revues (with names like, "A Night in Venice", "A Night in Spain", and "New Yorker Nights") included these three under various names, such as "Ted Healy and his Southern Gentlemen," but never as "Ted Healy and the Three Stooges."

Moe Howard took a break from show business in the late 1920s, and shortly after he returned he, his brother Shemp, and Fine left after falling out with Healy over a movie contract. Shemp went on to Hollywood to begin appearing in films and the youngest Howard brother, Jerome or "Curly," joined the Stooges. They appeared on stage in their own act (called for a time, "The Three Lost Souls" and "Howard, Fine and Howard") using some of the material from the Healy shows. Shortly afterward Healy sued the Stooges for their use of his material, but since the copyright was held by the Shubert Theatre Corporation, for which it had been produced, and the Stooges had the Shuberts' permission to use it, Healy lost the suit.

Healy continued to have great success in vaudeville, however. In 1931 he hired a new set of stooges, consisting of Eddie Moran (soon replaced by Richard "Dick" Hakins), Jack Wolf, and Paul "Mousie" Garner. The Howard-Fine-Howard Stooges rejoined Healy's act in 1932, obtaining higher salaries and a promise from Healy to quit drinking. They made one movie, appearing in "Soup to Nuts." Healy did not quit drinking, however, and when in 1934 he reduced the Stooges' salary they quit again, this time permanently.

Healy then went on to establish a promising career in motion pictures, where he was successful in both comedic roles (where he was often grouped with new "stooges") and dramatic roles. After Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Curly Howard left his act in 1934, Healy appeared in a succession of films for 20th Century-Fox, Warner Brothers and MGM. He was 41 and under contract to MGM at the time of his death on December 21, 1937. His death occurred a few hours after preview audiences had acclaimed his work in the Warner Brothers film Hollywood Hotel (1937).

Circumstances of Death

A cloud of mystery still hangs over the cause of Healy's demise. Newspaper accounts attributed his passing to serious head injuries sustained in a night-club brawl while celebrating the birth of his first child, a son. Conflicting reports stated that the comedian died of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home. Apparently, his physician, Dr. Wyant LeMont, refused to claim a heart seizure as the cause, and refused to sign the death certificate. Despite his sizable salary, Healy died penniless. In fact, MGM's staff members got together a fund to pay for his burial. Moe later mentioned that comedian Brian Foy of the Eddie Foy family footed a great part of the bill for Healy's funeral.

Two days before his death, Healy visited Moe Howard's wife, Helen, at their Hollywood apartment with the news that Betty (Hickman), his second wife, was expecting. Excited at the prospect of his first child, he told Moe's wife, "I'll make him the richest kid in the world." Moe had later related in an interview that Ted had always wanted children and that it was ironic that the birth of his first child came the night of his death. Moe recalled, "He was nuts about kids. He used to visit our homes and envied the fact that we were all married and had children. Healy always loved kids and often gave Christmas parties for underprivileged youngsters and spent hundreds of dollars on toys."

At the time of Ted's death, the Stooges (consisting of Moe, Larry, and Curly) were at Grand Central Terminal in New York City preparing to leave for a personal appearance in Boston. Before their departure, Moe called Rube Jackter, head of Columbia Pictures' sales department, to confirm their benefit performance at Boston's Children's Hospital. During the conversation, Jackter told Howard that the night editor of the New York Times wanted to talk to him.

Moe phoned the Times. The editor, without even a greeting, queried curtly, "Is this Moe?" Howard replied, "Yes." Then the editor asked, "Would you like to make a statement on the death of Ted Healy?" Moe was stunned. He dropped the phone. Then, folding his arms over his head, started to sob. Curly and Larry rushed into the phone booth to warn Moe that their train was about to leave and saw him crumpled over, crying. Since Moe never showed his emotions, Larry cracked to Curly, "Your brother's nuts. He is actually crying." Moe didn't explain the reason for his sudden emotional breakdown until he got aboard the train.

It was when Howard arrived back in Hollywood that he learned the details of Healy's death from a writer friend, Henry Taylor. He told Moe that Ted had been out drinking at the Trocadero night club on Sunset Strip and an argument broke out between him and three college fellows. Ted had called them every vile name in the book and offered to go outside the club to take care of them one at a time. But once outside, Ted didn't have a chance to raise his fists; the three men jumped him, knocked him to the ground and kicked him in the head, ribs and stomach. Healy's friend Joe Frisco, came to the scene and picked him up from the sidewalk and took him to his apartment, where Ted died of what medical officials first claimed was a brain concussion.

A quite different version, however, appears to be that Healy was beaten to death by screen legend Wallace Beery, a young Albert R. Broccoli (later producer of James Bond films), and notorious gangster Pat DiCicco. This story emerges in a book about MGM's legendary "fixers," Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling, written by E. J. Fleming. MGM sent Beery, one of their most valuable properties, off to Europe for several months until everything cooled down, and the "college boys" were fabricated to conceal the truth.

According to Moe, even in the heyday of his stage career, Ted refused to put any money away and spent every dime of his salary as fast as he received it. Healy was also a heavy drinker, loved the horses, and enjoyed hunting and fishing; his favorite reading matter was race track charts.

Moe often said that Ted's drinking led to outbreaks of violence, such as the night of his tragic, untimely death. When sober, he was the essence of refinement. Ironically, liquor had killed Ted's father and uncle and ruined the life of his sister, Marcia. As a result, Ted made a pledge when he was very young never to touch liquor, but the strain of show business life got him started and he was never able to stop.

Ted Healy, married twice, was survived by his widow, the former Betty Hickman, whom he married on May 15, 1936, and a son, John Jacob (who was baptized in St. Augustine's Church, across from MGM, a week after Healy's death).

Ted Healy is interred in Calvary Cemetery in Los Angeles, California.

Further reading

• The Complete Three Stooges: The Official Filmography and Three Stooges Companion; by Jon Solomon [1], (Comedy III Productions, Inc., 2002).
• The Three Stooges Scrapbook; by Jeff Lenburg, Joan Howard Maurer, Greg Lenburg[2](Citadel Press, 1994).

External links

• Ted Healy at IMDb