Ted Healy

Ted Healy, born Ernest Lea Nash on October 1, 1896, in Kaufman, Texas, was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, actor, and composer who built one of the most influential careers in early twentieth-century American entertainment. His parents were Charles McKinney Nash and Mary Eugenia Nash, née McGinty, and he had an elder sister, Elizabeth Marcia Nash, who later appeared in films under the name Marcia Healy. The family relocated to New York in 1908, where Nash attended De La Salle Institute. Though he initially considered a career in business, he turned to the stage, entering show business in 1912 at the age of fifteen when he and childhood friend Moe Howard joined the Annette Kellerman Diving Girls, a vaudeville act featuring four boys. The act ended after an onstage accident, and the two went their separate ways. Nash subsequently developed a solo vaudeville act and adopted the stage name Ted Healy.

Healy's vaudeville career grew rapidly, and he became known as a comedian and master of ceremonies. By the 1920s he was earning $9,000 a week, making him the highest-paid performer in vaudeville at the time. His act expanded to include his wife, Betty Brown, and a German shepherd dog. When acrobats in his touring revue Syncopated Toes quit in late 1923, Moe Howard answered an advertisement for replacements and rejoined Healy, this time as a stooge — a planted audience member brought onstage as part of the act. Howard's brother Shemp joined as a heckler in early 1924.

Healy's Broadway career began in 1925 when he and Betty were hired to appear in Earl Carroll's Vanities, the 1925 edition of the annual revue. Following a contract dispute with Carroll, the Healys departed the production in October of that year. Subsequent stage work brought Healy into collaboration with the Shubert Brothers, who hired him for The Passing Show of 1926. That production did not reach Broadway, but the Shuberts retooled it into A Night in Spain, which arrived on Broadway in May 1927 after four months of successful previews, with Phil Baker joining Healy as a co-star. During the run, Larry Fine was added to Healy's company of comics in late March 1928 after being recruited from Chicago's Rainbo Gardens nightclub.

The Shuberts next hired Healy to star in A Night in Venice, which began rehearsals in January 1929. Moe Howard returned to the act for this production, as did Shemp Howard, while comedy xylophonist Fred Sanborn filled in temporarily for Fine, who joined the cast around mid-February. A Night in Venice completed a brief road tour before closing in March 1930. Concurrent with the Venice run, Healy booked his ensemble in additional engagements under the billing "Ted Healy & His Southern Gentlemen" and later "Ted Healy & His Racketeers." Fox Films hired Healy to co-star in Soup to Nuts in July 1930, and he brought Moe, Shemp, Larry Fine, and Sanborn with him to Hollywood. A dispute over a movie contract led to a parting of ways with the Stooges in late August 1930.

Healy assembled a new group of replacement stooges in early 1931, including Eddie Moran, later replaced by Dick Hakins, along with Jack Wolf and Paul "Mousie" Garner. This lineup accompanied Healy in two Broadway productions: the drama The Gang's All Here and the revue Billy Rose's Crazy Quilt. Moe Howard and Larry Fine rejoined Healy's act in late July 1932, with Shemp Howard following before departing on August 19 to pursue a solo career. Shemp was replaced by his younger brother Curly Howard, and the new configuration debuted on August 27, 1932, at the RKO Palace in Cleveland, Ohio. The group toured major nightclubs and movie palaces nationally before Ted was contracted by MGM in late spring 1933.

At MGM, Healy appeared alongside Clark Gable and Joan Crawford in Dancing Lady and had major roles in features including Bombshell with Jean Harlow and Operator 13 with Marion Davies and Gary Cooper. In March 1934, Fine and the Howards permanently parted ways with Healy and began working at Columbia Studios as The Three Stooges, the act Healy had originally created. Healy continued appearing in MGM films through 1937 and was also loaned to 20th Century-Fox and Warner Bros. His final film, Hollywood Hotel, was released shortly after his death on December 21, 1937.