Burt Kearns, author of SHEMP!
Original Airdates: Mar. 21-24, 2025
TVC 682.3: Ed and guest co-host Chuck Harter welcome award-winning producer, director, writer, journalist, and author Burt Kearns. Burt’s latest book, SHEMP! The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard: The Face of Film Comedy, not only takes a deep dive into the life and career of Shemp Howard—one of the original members of The Three Stooges and, in real life, the older brother of Moe Howard and Curly Howard—but debunks many myths both about Shemp’s career before and during The Three Stooges and about Shemp’s personal life, including some myths that were perpetuated by either Moe Howard or members of Moe’s family. SHEMP! is available through Applause Books.
Why Shemp Howard was a “Near Great”
Original Airdates: Mar. 21-24, 2025
TVC 682.4: Burt Kearns, author of SHEMP! The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard: The Face of Film Comedy, talks to Ed and guest co-host Chuck Harter about some of the more notable roles in Shemp Howard’s diverse career as a solo actor, including Private Buckaroo (1942), a musical comedy featuring Harry James, The Andrews Sisters, and Mary Wickes that Burt says is as close to a star vehicle that Shemp ever had; why Shemp rejoined The Stooges in 1946, after Curly’s debilitating stroke; and why rejoining the Stooges gave Shemp an immortality that he may not have achieved had he remained on his own. SHEMP! is available through Applause Books.
Why The Three Stooges are Still Popular Today
Original Airdates: Mar. 21-24, 2025
TVC 682.5: Burt Kearns, author of SHEMP! The Biography of The Three Stooges’ Shemp Howard: The Face of Film Comedy, talks to Ed and guest co-host Chuck Harter about how the repeated blows to the head that Shemp Howard, Curly Howard, and Larry Fine all took during the many live appearances that The Three Stooges made every year during their annual hiatus from Columbia Pictures resulted in cerebral hemorrhages that proved to be fatal for all three actors. SHEMP! is available through Applause Books.
