He is best known as the leader and straight man of the Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades.

"[1] Howard developed an interest in acting causing his grades to worsen and spurred him to play hookey from school: "I used to stand outside the theater knowing the truant officer was looking for me.

Already in 1909, he had met a young man named Ernest Lea Nash (later known as Ted Healy), who was later to provide a significant boost for his career aspirations.

[2] Howard continued his attempts at gaining show-business experience by singing in a bar with his older brother Shemp, until their father put a stop to it.

Starting in 1914, they performed with a minstrel show troupe on a Mississippi River showboat for two summers, presenting an act they called "Howard and Howard—A Study in Black".

During A Night in Spain, and at the end of a four-month run in Chicago, Healy recruited vaudeville violinist Larry Fine to join the troupe in March 1928.

[3] After the show ended in late November, Healy signed for the Shuberts' new revue A Night in Venice and coaxed Moe Howard out of retirement to rejoin the act in December 1928.

Joining the RKO vaudeville circuit, they toured for almost two years, eventually dubbing themselves as "Three Lost Souls" and taking on Jack Walsh as their straight man.

[4] In July 1932, Moe, Larry, and Shemp were approached by Healy to rejoin him for the new Shubert Broadway revue Passing Show of 1932, and the three accepted the offer.

Early in 1933 during appearances in Los Angeles, Healy and the Stooges were hired by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer as "nut" comics to liven up feature films and short subjects with their antics.

Despite his outwardly rather cruel demeanor towards his pals, Moe was also very loyal and protective of the other Stooges on film, keeping them from harm, and, should it befall them, doing whatever it took to save them.

Still, the Stooges received no subsequent royalties (i.e., residuals) from any of their many shorts; they were paid a flat amount for each one, and Columbia owned the rights (and profits) thereafter.

Their next short, Men in Black (also 1934), a parody of the contemporary hospital drama Men in White, was their first and only film to be nominated for an Academy Award (with the classic catchphrases "Calling Dr. Howard, Dr. Fine, Dr. Howard" followed by their reiterated unison declaration as young doctors, "For Duty and Humanity!!").

Moe's impersonation of Adolf Hitler highlighted these shorts, the first of which preceded Charlie Chaplin's film satire The Great Dictator by nine months.

He had already suffered a series of them before the filming of Beer Barrel Polecats (1946) and was replaced by Shemp, who agreed to return to the group, but only until Curly would be well enough to rejoin.

[2] After Shemp rejoined the act, Moe, Shemp, and Larry shot a television pilot for ABC called Jerks of All Trades (1949), apparently intended to lead to a weekly sitcom series on the premise that the Stooges would try a different job or business every week, hoping that eventually one of their attempts would be successful.

Kahane warned the Stooges that a contract stipulation restricted them from performing in a TV series that might compete with their two-reel comedies.

The Stooges replaced Shemp with Besser; already an established Columbia comedy shorts star in his own right and frequent movie supporting player.

Several local television children's shows around the country began running the Stooges films, among them Paul Shannon, host of Adventure Time at WTAE-TV in Pittsburgh and Sally Starr at WFIL-TV (now WPVI-TV) in Philadelphia.

The films were so popular some young fans tried to emulate Moe's slapping, gouging, and hitting, prompting the Stooges to warn them against trying to re-create those actions.

However, he still did minor solo roles and walk-on bits in movies, such as Don't Worry, We'll Think of a Title (1966) and Doctor Death: Seeker of Souls (1973), as well as several appearances on The Mike Douglas Show in the 1970s.

In one of Douglas's episodes, Moe, his hair in a style popular at the time, made a surprise appearance during an interview with the writer of a "where-are-they-now" book.

Production halted when on January 9, 1970, Larry suffered a major stroke during filming, paralyzing the left side of his body.

After Fine's stroke, Howard asked longtime Three Stooges supporting actor Emil Sitka to replace Larry, but this final lineup never shot any material.

Howard died of lung cancer at age 77 on May 4, 1975, at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, where he had been admitted a week earlier in April, just over three months after Larry Fine's death, and just short of his 78th birthday.

Howard was portrayed by Paul Ben-Victor in The Three Stooges, a 2000 made-for-TV biopic that focused on the trio's years in show business and their off-screen lives.