rushed him to the hospital, saving his life, but the wound resulted in a noticeably thinner left leg and a slight limp. Curly was so afraid of surgery that he never had the limp corrected. While with the Stooges, he developed his famous exaggerated walk to conceal the limp on screen. Howard was interested in music and comedy and watched his brothers Shemp and Moe perform as stooges in Ted Healy's vaudeville act. He also liked to hang around backstage, although he never participated in any of the routines. Career Early career and the Three Stooges Howard married his first wife, Julia Rosenthal, on August 5, 1930, but the marriage was annulled shortly afterward. Howard's first on-stage break was as a comedy musical conductor in 1928 for the Orville Knapp Band. Moe later recalled that his performances usually overshadowed those of the band. Though he enjoyed the gig, he watched as brothers Moe and Shemp with partner Larry Fine made it big as some of Ted Healy's "Stooges". Vaudeville star Healy had a very popular stage act, in which he would try to tell jokes or sing, only to have his stooges wander on stage and interrupt or heckle him and cause disturbances from the audience. Meanwhile, Healy and company appeared in their first feature film, Rube Goldberg's Soup to Nuts (1930). Shemp Howard, however, soon tired of Healy's abrasiveness, bad temper, and alcoholism. In 1932, he was offered a contract at the Vitaphone Studios in Brooklyn. With Shemp gone, Moe suggested that Curly fill the third stooge role, but Healy felt that with his thick, chestnut hair and elegant waxed mustache, he looked too good for the part. Howard left the room and returned minutes later with his head shaven (the mustache remained very briefly). In one of the few interviews Curly Howard gave in his lifetime, he complained about the loss of his hair: "I had to shave it off right down to the skin." In 1934, MGM was building Healy up as a solo comedian in feature films, and Healy dissolved the act to pursue his career. Like Shemp, the new team of Moe, Larry, and Curly were weary of Healy's drinking and abrasive personality. That same year, with "The Three Stooges" as the act's new name, they signed to appear in two-reel comedy short subjects for Columbia Pictures. The Stooges soon became the most popular short-subject