"Curly, and the Brightest Day"

For example, when Curly/"Babe" took a long stay with relatives in Pittsburgh, they all remembered him as being a doll. And, similarly, when a nephew, or cousin, stayed with Babe in California, the relative recalled him as being very humorous, and sweet. And certainly, when Babe would go to baseball games, or nightclubs, as the various Stooges books ALL indicate, he didn't act like a wallflower!

Perhaps even more significantly,whenever there was a kid around-- Babe would turn on the Curly charm, in a second, to make the child smile.

I hate to get into psychoananlyzing ANYBODY, particularly someone who's been gone for five decades, and on whom the record isn't exactly clear. But it seems more likely that there may have been a comfort factor involved, as to when Babe would get an attack of shyness, or not be "on"...

With the studio employee's statement: It seems likely to me that he might simply have encountered Babe during one of the periods when Babe's night life was pretty wild... Based on ALL the different published accounts of STOOGES history, it's possible--and forgive me, for this is PURELY SPECULATION--that there might have been days when Curly had simply come in too late, the night before--

And, at the studio, waiting for filming to begin, simply marshalled his energies, resting--

UNTIL the cameras were ready to roll--

And then turning the energy on, full blast, in his performances. There have always been people simply not aware of the effects of a "late night out..." OR, similarly, what some one nursing a hangover looks like, particularly when trying very hard to be able to concentrate.... Sitting there, or milling around the sound stage, Curly may very well have appeared "vacant," to anyone observing him. Maybe this is just wishful thinking, as a fan of Curly's... But it seems impossible to imagine that someone with Curly's verbal, and other performing abilities, didn't have some type of innate smarts (particularly when one considers that many of his ad-libs, particularly the Yiddish expressions that Curly would throw in-- were almost ALWAYS aprapos--AND funny!).

For that matter, it would have taken some kind of smarts to work effectively, as a song plugger (which Curly did, in Pittsburgh, if I recall correctly).

The most remarkable aspect of Curly's "story," to me, at least, is how his comic genius was just, apparently, lying there unexplored for years... As he went to--probably!--many different vaudeville type shows (and, of course, also watched Ted Healy and his brothers, and Larry Fine, perform)... Perhaps there was some type of incredible osmosis... But the final result, of course, was the burst of comic genius that ensued from "Curly"--

And which, no matter what influences there had been on him-- His own special abilities (needless to remark upon, of course, here)-- Made indelibly his own.

While there HAVE been many cases of show business personalities who are basically, outside of the stagelights, dopes-- The very nature of the STOOGES' final output-- And the screen personna that Babe created-- Always suggested, to me, that he had--at the least--some type of innate intelligence, at work-- And at play...!