The Sixth Stooge
 Joe "Curly Joe" DeRita July 12, 1909 – July 3, 1993 |
Moe, Larry, Curly, Shemp, Joe, and Curly Joe at various stages because they were alas, subject to that attrition secondary to mortality.
I really didn't differentiate between the various cast members because in that fog which was the innocence of youth I was neither aware nor interested in any reasons nor did those cast changes affect me in my enjoyment of the various episodes presented.
Born Joseph Wardell, Joe DeRita was an American actor and comedian and his was that ability to be a part of my life in that fantasy which was my childhood. During that time there was sometimes confluence in that which I perceived and that which was reality.
Reality didn't totally set in til somwhere around age 28 for me. That would place the year in the 1983 range.
Joe passed some decade later of pneumonia in Woodland Hills, California.
Rest in peace.