Three Stooges comedy legend died penniless with staff forced to pay for funeral

The roaring 20s was a gold mine for Ted Healy, who at one time was making around $9,000 a week (equivilent to about $166,000 today) as the highest-paid performer in vaudeville. But, by the following decade, when the actor and creator of the Three Stooges died in 1937 - during the Great Depression - he was broke.

Ted Healy was born Charles Ernest Lee Nash, or Ernest Lea Nash (according to different sources) on October 1, 1896, in Kaufman, Texas. After moving to New York, Healy initially intended to become a businessman but eventually decided on the stage and made his first inroads into show business at the age of 15 in 1912, where he joined the Annette Kellerman Diving Girls alongside future three stooges actor, Moe Howard. Although Healy is chiefly remembered today as the creator of The Three Stooges, he also had a successful stage and film career of his own.

Healy discovered the Three Stooges act in 1925 as they were performing on vaudeville, which was billed as a comedy show without psychological or moral intentions. The act was originally called Ted Healy And His Stooges, but the slapstick trio broke away from Healy in 1934 due to his mismanagement of them and their finances.

According to the Greatest Entertainer Archives, after Larry Fine, Moe Howard, and Curly Howard left his act in 1934, Healy appeared in a succession of films for studios including 20th Century Fox, Warner Brothers, and MGM. The actor and creator of one of the most highly acclaimed comedy acts was 41 and under contract to MGM at the time of his death on December 21, 1937.

He died just a few hours after preview audiences had praised his work in the Warner Brothers film Hollywood Hotel, where he starred alongside Dick Powell and Rosemary Lane.

A cloud of mystery still hangs over the cause of Healy's death, with conflicting stories and accounts being presented at the time. Media accounts attributed it to serious head injuries sustained in a nightclub brawl while celebrating the news of his first child. Conflicting reports claimed the comedian died of a heart attack at his Los Angeles home. The death certificate issued by the state of California lists his cause of death as nephritis, or inflammation of the kidneys, which was believed to be attributed to heavy alcohol consumption.

Regardless of the cause of death, it came as a shock to many, including the stooges who were at Grand Central Terminal in New York City preparing to leave for a personal appearance in Boston when the news broke. Howard heard about his friend's death in a telephone call with the editor of The New York Times.

Moe Howard reportedly sobbed at the news and was in such shock that he could only rely the news to the other two stooges when they were all on the train together. Despite his sizable salary, Ted Healy died penniless, with MGM's staff members having to start a fund to pay for his burial.

Howard later mentioned that producer Bryan Foy of the famed Foy family of vaudevillians footed a sizeable portion of the bill for the funeral. According to the famous stooge, even in the heyday of his stage career, Ted refused to save money and spent every dime of his salary as fast as he earned it. Healy loved betting on horses, and his favorite reading material was race track charts.

Healy was survived by his widow, Betty Healy (née Hickman, whom he married on May 15, 1936), and his newborn son, John Jacob Nash. The young baby was baptized in St. Augustine's Church, opposite MGM studios, a week after Healy's death.