Joe Besser

Joe Besser, born Jessel Besser on August 12, 1907, in St. Louis, Missouri, was an American actor and comedian whose career spanned vaudeville, Broadway, film, radio, and television. He died on March 1, 1988. The ninth child of Morris and Fanny Besser, Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe, he grew up alongside seven older sisters and an older brother, Manny, who worked as an ethnic Jewish comic. From childhood, Besser was drawn to show business, particularly the annual magic performances of Howard Thurston in St. Louis.

At age twelve, Thurston allowed Besser to serve as an audience plant during one of his St. Louis engagements. So captivated was Besser that he stowed away on Thurston's train after the run concluded and was discovered the following day in Detroit, asleep on top of a lion's cage. Thurston contacted Besser's parents and subsequently trained him as an assistant. During an early trick involving the production of a rabbit, Besser's nerves caused him to reveal the hidden rabbit prematurely, drawing laughter from the audience. From that point forward, Thurston assigned him exclusively to comic mishap roles. Besser was also placed by St. Louis juvenile authorities in a corrective school around this same period.

Besser built a stage persona centered on an impish, whiny, and easily excitable man prone to sudden outbursts and temper tantrums. Catchphrases including "You crazy, youuuuu!" and "Not so faaaaaast!" became associated with his act as he rose to prominence as a vaudeville headliner, with radio and film appearances following. The comedy team of Olsen and Johnson, known for their fast-paced Broadway revues combining songs and blackout sketches, brought Besser into their production Sons o' Fun, one of his two Broadway credits alongside If the Shoe Fits, with his Broadway appearances spanning 1941 to 1946. In Sons o' Fun, Besser appeared in five sketches, among them a turn as the sissified "Cowboy Joe." His work in that production attracted the attention of the Shubert brothers, who signed him to a theatrical contract.

Columbia Pictures subsequently hired Besser away from the Shuberts, and he relocated to Hollywood in 1944. There he appeared in feature-length musical comedies including Hey, Rookie and Eadie Was a Lady, released in 1945. In June 1943, he appeared on the Jack Benny radio program in the episode titled "Jack Prepares For Carnegie Hall." On May 9, 1946, Besser performed his "Army Drill" routine alongside stage partner Jimmy Little on the pioneering NBC television program Hour Glass. A May 27, 1946 article in Life magazine reported that the broadcast reached approximately 20,000 viewers on roughly 3,500 television sets, primarily in the New York City area. During this era, his persona was sufficiently recognizable that he was frequently caricatured in Looney Tunes animated shorts. He also appeared in the 1950 action film The Desert Hawk.

Having substituted for Lou Costello on radio opposite Bud Abbott, Besser became a regular presence in Abbott and Costello productions by the early 1950s. When the duo produced The Abbott and Costello Show for television, they cast Besser as Oswald "Stinky" Davis, a loudmouthed man-child costumed in an oversized Little Lord Fauntleroy outfit, shorts, and a flat-top hat, appearing during the show's first season. He was also cast as Yonkel, a chariot man, in the 1953 low-budget biblical film Sins of Jezebel, which starred Paulette Goddard in the title role.

In 1949, Columbia producer Jules White hired Besser to star in his own two-reel comedy shorts. Ten Besser shorts were released over eight years, four of them pairing him with radio comedian Jim Hawthorne. Following the death of Shemp Howard on November 22, 1955, from a cerebral hemorrhage, the Three Stooges required a replacement. Columbia executives, who held final approval over casting, insisted on a performer already under contract to the studio. Besser, whose last solo short had been released in 1956, successfully renegotiated his contract and joined Moe Howard and Larry Fine as the third Stooge, receiving a salary exceeding what the other two members earned.

Rather than imitate either Curly or Shemp, Besser continued performing the whiny character he had developed throughout his career. His contract included a clause prohibiting excessive physical punishment, and he recalled that Larry Fine volunteered to absorb the majority of Moe's on-screen abuse. The Stooges shorts featuring Besser were filmed from the spring of 1956 through the end of 1957. Columbia shut down its two-reel comedy department on December 20, 1957, though sufficient footage had been shot for sixteen comedies, which were released at intervals through June 1959, with Sappy Bull Fighters serving as the final entry. Besser never made any personal appearances as a member of the Three Stooges. When Moe Howard and Larry Fine discussed a personal appearance tour after their Columbia contract ended, Besser declined, citing his wife's heart attack in November 1957 as the reason he was unwilling to travel without her.

Beyond his Stooge tenure, Besser remained active in television, playing Jillson, a maintenance man, on The Joey Bishop Show. In a 1985 radio interview, a portion of which was later aired on A&E Network's Biography, Besser spoke positively of Moe Howard and Larry Fine.