Harry H. Corbett

Corbett and his wife Maureen had two children, one of whom, Susannah Corbett, is an actress, best known for the role of Ellie Pascoe in the BBC's television adaptations of Reginald Hill's Dalziel and Pascoe detective novels. Being the final living member of the original Three Stooges act, his epitaph reads, "The Last Stooge.". He had died of a massive heart attack in the March of that year, at the age of fifty-seven. Curly Joe DeRita died in Los Angeles on July 3, 1993. Corbett's final acting role was in an episode of the Anglia Television anthology drama series Tales of the Unexpected, shot before his death and eventually transmitted two months afterwards, in May 1982. In later years, DeRita attempted to form "The New Three Stooges," featuring actors unrelated to the originals, but the act failed and DeRita retired. As with many other British comedy programmes of the era, there were also two theatrically-released Steptoe and Son films: Steptoe and Son (1972) and Steptoe Rides Again (1973). However, Larry Fine suffered a stroke in 1970, permanently disbanding the Stooges.

Steptoe and Son did lead to Corbett gaining some work in comedy films, most notably starring in Carry On Screaming in 1966 and appearing in Terry Gilliam's Jabberwocky (1977). Through the 1960s, DeRita became a readily accepted member of the team, participating in animated series and television series such as The New 3 Stooges. A subsequent tour of a Steptoe and Son stage show in Australia in the late 1970s proved to be a complete disaster, as any sort of working relationship between the pair of them was now impossible. The team formed Comedy III Productions, Inc., and created a number of theatrical Three Stooges films, including Have Rocket, Will Travel and Snow White Meets the Three Stooges. Production on the series was also made stressful by Corbett's strained relationship with his co-star Brambell, and by the end of their time on the series they were not on speaking terms outside of takes. With the advent of longer theatrical films, Columbia Pictures' short films studio shut down, leaving the Stooges to seek their own full-length features. Although the enormous popularity of Steptoe and Son - as the series was titled - made Corbett a star, it proved to be a dead-end to his serious acting career, as he became irreversibly associated with the Harold Steptoe character in the public eye. DeRita's arrival coincided with necessary changes to the formula.

The play was a huge success and a full series was soon commissioned, which eventually ran, with some breaks, until 1974. Noticing his physical resemblance of predecessors Besser and Curly Howard, DeRita was named "Curly Joe," and became the third Stooge in 1958. He played Harold Steptoe, a rag and bone man living with his irascible father Albert, played by Wilfrid Brambell, in a junkyard with only their horse for company. Familiar with DeRita's work, Howard asked him to join the act, which he readily accepted. In 1962 he appeared in The Offer, an episode of the BBC's anthology series of one-off comedy plays, Comedy Playhouse, written by Ray Galton and Alan Simpson. After Shemp Howard died in 1955, Moe Howard and Larry Fine tried to complete the "Three Stooges" act with Joe Besser, who left shortly thereafter over creative differences. He also guested regularly in television dramas, appearing in episodes of popular series such as The Adventures of Robin Hood (as four different characters in four different episodes between 1957 and 1960) and Police Surgeon, the series that would later become The Avengers (in 1960). During World War II, DeRita joined the USO, performing through Great Britain and France with such celebrities as Bing Crosby and Randolph Scott.

From 1958 he began to appear regularly in film roles, first coming to public attention as a very serious, intense performer, completely in contrast to the reputation he would later gain as a sitcom actor. Taking his mother's maiden name, DeRita, the actor joined the Burlesque circuit during the 1920s, gaining fame as a comedian. When asked, he would often joke that the 'H' stood for "h'anything" - a manner of saying the word 'anything' once popular in some English regional dialects. Wardell's father was a stage technician, and his mother, a professional stage dancer; the three often acted on stage together from his early childhood. In the early 1950s he added the middle initial 'H' to his name in order to avoid confusion with the then-popular television entertainer Harry Corbett, who was well known for his act with the puppet Sooty. "Curly" Joe DeRita (July 12, 1909 - July 3, 1993), born Joseph Wardell, was an American comedian who is best known as the "sixth" of the Three Stooges. Corbett himself served in the army during the Second World War, and following his discharge after the war's conclusion he took up acting as a career, initially in repertory theatre.

When he was very young his mother died, and Corbett was sent back to England where he was raised by an aunt in Manchester. His father was an officer in the British Army who was stationed in the country as part of the occupying forces there. Corbett was born in Burma, now Myanmar, while it was still a British colony. Early in his career he was dubbed "the English Marlon Brando" by some sections of the British press, but due to typecasting his career never really developed as a major film actor, much to his frustration.

Corbett (1925-1982) (born Harry Corbett on February 28, 1925 in Rangoon, Burma; died March 21, 1982 in Hastings, East Sussex, England, UK) was a British actor, who was best known for his starring role in the hugely popular and long-running BBC Television sitcom Steptoe and Son in the 1960s and 70s. Harry H.