Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:10):
And we continue with our American stories. And up next
a story from Brad Server. Brad grew up watching The
Three Stooges on TV, not knowing he was related to
one of the greatest comic performers of all time. Every
day after school, Brad, his brother, and their friends would
pile in front of the TV to watch their idol,
(00:32):
Jerome Howard, best known as Curly. Then one day the
secret about their unknown grandfather was unveiled. Here's Brad Server
aka Curly g.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
To start this journey, we must first go back to Lithuania.
This were my great grandparents, Solomon and Jenny Horwitz and married.
They later left for America and arrived in Castlegard, New
York in eighteen ninety. Here they would start their family
of five boys, irving Benjamin, Samuel, Moses, and Jerome. Later
(01:17):
the world would know the three in this boys as Shemp,
Mow and Curly. My name is Brad Server and I'm
the youngest grandson of Curley Howard of the Three Stooges.
This is my American story. When Shemp and Moe were
in their teens, they would sneak off to Coney Island
to watch the vaudeville acts. They would later join these
(01:38):
performers and were then discovered by Ted Healy, a well
known vaudeville actor. In time, they met Lawrence Feinberg, better
known as Larry, and they became Ted Healy and his stooges.
In time, Shemp would leave the act and baby brother
filled in. The rest is comedy history for the ages.
(02:00):
WHI you college You're afraid of? Say Niagara fools.
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Nagrow Fallsly, I journ this stallion, sy steps inch by inch.
Speaker 2 (02:21):
In nineteen thirty seven, Curly met and married my grandmother,
Elaine Ackerman. A year later, they would have a baby
girl named Marylyn my mom. In nineteen forty one. My
grandparents divorced when my mom was three. My grandmother would
remarry a year later to a man named Moses Diamond.
(02:42):
My mother lived with them, but would visit Curly on
the weekends when he was in town. As my grandfather's
health started to decline, her visits were less frequent, and
she remembers visiting him in the hospital often. In nineteen
fifty two, when my mom was fourteen, Curly Howard passed
away at the age of forty eight. After my grandfather's passing,
(03:04):
she would legally be adopted by her stepfather, who really
had become her everyday dad. In early nineteen sixty my
mom met my father, Haskalate Server, in Los Angeles, California.
In December, my brother, Darren was born. Then in nineteen
sixty two, my sister Andrea, and then in nineteen sixty
(03:27):
five I joined them. My parents, though would later divorce
in nineteen seventy one. So after my parents divorced in
nineteen seventy one, it was a typical arrangement where my brother's, sister,
and I lived with my mother. My dad would then
move to Pacific Palisades because he was doing well in
(03:51):
the insurance agency that he was working for, and then
later my brother would wind up moving in with my dad.
A year later I would move in with my dad.
But we really started showing signs that we had something
very special in our blood because we were performing. My
(04:11):
brother was a self taught piano player. I think at
the age of five, we all loved to sing. We
would gather around the piano, my sister, my brother, and
I and we could all carry a tune, so you know,
it was great. So we would sing songs. Later it
would develop into performing makeshift musicals for you know, my
(04:34):
grandparents at the time, or my mom if she was
to drop us off, we'd say, Mom, come in and
see this, and we would, you know, we would do
the you know, the famous shows of that time. In
nineteen seventy one seventy two, we were doing Cabaret, West
Side Story, Soundy Music, And to this time, we came
home like every other kid after school. We came home
(04:58):
and we wanted to see the Stooges, so we'd rush home.
We'd watch in LA it was channel fifty two UHF,
and you had all the great shows that were coming on.
You know, you had Kimba, you had the Three Stooges,
the Little Rascals, you had speed Racer. I mean, all
these great shows, but the Stooges is what we came
home to watch most. And Curly was our hero. My
(05:21):
brother and I both loved Curly the most. But the
problem with that was at this age I was six,
my sister was eight, my brother was eleven. We had
no idea that we were the grandchildren of Curly. We
hadn't been told yet. But it was this one day
(05:43):
that we found out I believe I was maybe eight
at the time, maybe my brother was twelve somewhere around
that time. And my grandmother had taken my brother, Darren
to see his first Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof,
and he was at awe when he saw the show.
I mean, after the show, when they were driving home,
(06:05):
my grandmother and him, he just kept going on and
on of how he wanted to be an actor, he
wanted to be an actor, and he was just persistent
and on, and I think finally my grandmother said, Darren, enough,
I get it. It's probably because show business runs in
your blood. Your biological grandfather was Curly from the Three Stooges.
(06:31):
What do you mean, grandma, Yes, yes, yes, never mind
that you have your grandfather that you have now, So
just know that your talents come inherently through your bloodline
and just don't carry on with it when you get home.
La la la. So it's like my brother was basically
in shock, you know, he didn't say another word, I
think on the way home. And then he comes home
(06:53):
and he tells me and we're like, I mean, I
was like, you have to be that's not true, slightly,
and he's like Bradley, it's true, grandmother told me, and
we were just you know, we're like, what do you
do with that? I mean, your heroes become your family.
We are not ordinary people, we're more rons. And then
(07:15):
what are you supposed to do with that? I mean,
did I really think? Or did we really think? The
next day when we went to school, you know and
tell our friends, the same kids that came home with
us every day to watch The Stooges, we were now saying, oh,
by the way, Curly is our grandfather, so you know,
we live with it. We watched The Stooges, We're like, wow,
(07:38):
that's our grandfather, and it was like we didn't talk
about it when we were at our dad's once we
found out, because of course that's my mom's father, so
he doesn't want to hear anything about my mom. They're divorced.
My mom she didn't talk about it because one, she
was very young when Curly died. She was when she
(08:01):
was three years old, she was you know, adopted by
her new father, so that really became her everyday father.
She channeled out the Three Stooges. Curly was just not
something that she talked about. And then it was something
that we were kind of told not to talk about
because even though our grandfather, Moses Diamond was an amazing
(08:23):
man and an amazing grandfather to us, he wasn't Curly
Howard from the Three Stooges. So we basically were in check. So,
you know, through high school, did I talk about being
Curly's grandson? No, not really. You know, I was already
class clown. I was space case. I was the guy
(08:46):
that they wanted. Everyone wanted Brad Server to go to
the parties because I was the funny guy. It was
probably only later if I was ever if someone didn't
like me or some guy was going to kick my
or whatever, that the guy they would go, hey, you
know that's, by the way, that's Curly's grandson. And then
the person would say, oh, okay, you know, gave me
a a little a hall passes.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
And you've been listening to Brad Server tell a remarkable story.
By the way, what a good shock. Right, my granddad's Curly.
I bought him a lot of hall passes. When we
come back, more of the story of Brad Server and
in the end, a story of family bloodlines. Here on
our American stories, and we continue with our American stories
(09:45):
and Brad Servers story.
Speaker 4 (09:47):
Let's pick up where we last left off.
Speaker 2 (09:50):
So I continue to through the nineties build my career,
and I still at this point hadn't met anyone from
the three Stooge family, and I was I was thirty
years old or something. At the time. It was just
it was it didn't even cross my mind. But it
was one day my mom said, hey, Aunt Joan, which
(10:11):
is Moe's daughter, is having a little reunion at her house.
And so I went to this reunion where I met
my Aunt Joan, Moe's daughter, and it was great. She
was an incredibly wonderful, warm lady, and she had so
much memorabilia, and it finally was a chance to talk about,
(10:33):
you know, being the grandson with another family member, and
it was it was great, and it was just it
was so odd that all these years later, why am
I just talking to a Stooge family member. It just
the whole thing about being the grandchildren of Curly Howard,
one of the most iconic comedians of all time, was suppressed.
(10:55):
It was like we weren't to talk about it. We
did talk about it, but now I was, you know,
I was with Moe's daughter, and this would start turning
into spending more time in the future with Stuge family members,
which was great. But what really turn my life around
was in two thousand, I had my daughter, Elizabeth Elaine Server,
(11:20):
and she's named her middle name, Elaine is after my
grandmother Elaine. And I love being a dad, and you know,
had my career, but I still hadn't gotten in the
Stooge thing until I went to my first Stooge convention.
And these conventions were going on for a long time
and they were usually in Pennsylvania and Fort Washington, Pennsylvania,
(11:42):
which is about thirty minutes from Philadelphia. And I went
to my first Stooge convention and I bet the fans,
you know, and the fans are so endearing and amazing.
They love the Stooges to this day. They mean everything
to them. And I would hear the stories of how
(12:02):
the Stooges change their lives and how much the Stooges
mean to them.
Speaker 3 (12:06):
I want a piece of turkey, they too, Oh, so
you want a piece of turkey, give it me, now,
you got it.
Speaker 2 (12:16):
And then other Stooge family members were at these events,
so I started building relationships with them, and that was great,
and so I would continue. It was about every year
we would go to these stuge events. I'd go with
my brother, and then later I would go by myself,
and then I'd bring my daughter, and she got exposed
to being part of it, and she she loved it,
(12:37):
you know, for a while. You know, as she got older,
she was like, I don't want to go to these
things anymore. But it really was special, and really, all
the fans out there are the three Stooges, are fans
in general of comedy. If you're in the Philadelphia area,
there's the largest stooge museum, maybe the only stage museum,
but it is three stories of the largest and great
(13:00):
stuge museum in the world. It's called the Stougium and
it's in Ambler, Pennsylvania, which there again isn't too far
from Philadelphia, and I strongly recommend that you go there.
It's it's a must for any Stooge fan that can go.
It's it's it's it's truly amazing. And a couple of
things that come with, you know, the singing and the
(13:21):
the other talents and be able to play music. Was
out of the three of us, I call us the
grand Stooges was I was able to go up this
in my register and topic this, and it was it
was like, what what is that? I'm a victim a circumstance,
(13:42):
but it was like WHOA. I didn't even know that
I could do that. All these years later, I was like, well,
I guess that was something that was you know, God
given curly gave me that that I had this kind
of high pitched voice slightly. So continue to go to
the Stooge of event. And of course social media was
happening on Big Ben and was on Facebook, and I
(14:04):
was reaching out to the fans and going back and
forth listening to their stories, telling, you know, commenting them,
telling you know, there again, the Stooges brought a lot
of these people out of their darkest times, and it
meant so much for me to be able to give
back and tell them thank you and how much I
appreciate them, and just kind of just building off that.
(14:25):
But in twenty twelve, you know, something that I thought
that would never happen was the Stooges were going to
be on the big screen, the Three Stooges movie. So
what else happened in twenty twelve? I on social media.
Met a friend who now is my business partner, who
is the gentleman that is extremely talented named Andy Pagana.
(14:51):
And Andy found me shortly after the Stooges movie came out,
and he actually tried out for the role of Curly
and came in third place, and he sent me his
audition video. So I was like, wow, I met this
guy that tried out for Curly. He wound up having
he had such a love not only for the Three Stooges,
(15:12):
but had such a background in the comedy trios and
duos of that genre. He was you know, Laurel and
Hardy and the Marx brothers and all of them. And
we became extremely good friends. And he was a writer.
He was a producer. He was producing, he wrote screenplays.
(15:35):
He was a great photographer with filming stuff. So it
was like he was like, Brad, you got to make videos.
I mean, he was doing some videos, but it was like,
the fans need to see you. I was like, I guess,
I mean, I loved I loved the camera, right, I
experienced that. So we started filming videos. In the first
(15:55):
video that I think I remember doing that, it was
going to be my grandfather's one hundred and thirteenth birthday,
and I thought that we should do a tribute birthday,
you know, or tribute for his birthday, right, So so
we came up with why not get hit by one
hundred and thirteen pies. So we spent the day going
throughout Hollywood and the day and night and we went
(16:17):
to different places and some people were celebrities, some people
were just people off the street. Most of them were
people off the street. And for the whole day and night,
I just got pelted with one hundred and thirteen pies.
And I was like honored, I was beat. I was
so tired. I was I mean, it was it was hard,
But I'm like, wait a second. The Three Stooges did
(16:38):
this for years and took so much punishment, and my
grandfather took so much punishment. The least I can do
is take one hundred and thirteen pies in one day.
And that video can be seen on YouTube on my
YouTube channel with Early's grandson. But it came out great
and the fans loved it, right, and so ninety nine
percent of the comments, which is hard to find these days,
(17:01):
we're all very positive. They loved it. They laughed. They
enjoyed it. So Andy and a couple of my other
buddies that are extremely talented, we started doing video content.
So we built the Curly's Grandson channel and Andy Bagana's
got his own channel and it's just it's slapstick type
comedy and I just am myself. I'm Brad Serverer, that
(17:25):
funny guy, but I used my high pitched voice. But
it's just naturally in my nature that I look a
little bit like him, which is a blessing because he's
a very handsome man. We all know that. But something
else came up, and it was a challenge that I
didn't think that I would ever encounter, and that was
a live performance. We're going to be putting on the
Three Stooges live and it's going to tour the US,
(17:49):
and we want you to be the fifth man, which
is basically a supporting actor and all the little skits
and what about it? Do you want to be in
the show? And I was like, of course, because we
didn't know where the stage is still going to be relevant?
Was our show going to be relevant? And it was?
And it was. It was really after the shows where
(18:10):
the fans stayed for we did Q and A's and
they stood in lines for hours to take pictures with
us and to say thank you so much for bringing
us back in time, you know, when things were so
much simpler and so much better. I mean, today has
so much muck muck and so much stuff going on
that going to see a Three Stooges show, a Matt
(18:31):
and A or an eating show and they absolutely loved it.
You know, There's some things that happened that I don't
have all the answers to that I'm going to work on.
And I just want to continue to bring laughter to
the fans. I want to continue to be in front
of the camera. I want to have people go to
(18:53):
my channel, Curly's Grandson on YouTube and find me on Instagram,
and find me on Facebook and interact and I do
my best to try to reach out to them. And
Curly G there again, Sharp for Curly's Grandson. Build that brand.
You know, it represents my grandfather. I'm representing his legacy.
(19:14):
So I want to continue.
Speaker 3 (19:15):
To do that.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
And I just want to thank you for allowing me
to be on your show.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Oh and thank you Brad Curly G for coming on
our show. And thanks to Greg Hangler for the great
production on the piece. And my goodness, my favorite part
of this story is when he went to his first
stooge convention and we are heading the show is heading
to a stooge convention, we promise you. And there he
met the fans who told him how much the Stooges
(19:41):
had changed their lives and how much the Stooges meant
to them.
Speaker 4 (19:45):
And then it.
Speaker 1 (19:46):
Led to, of course, three Stooges live and touring the country,
the story of Brad Server in the end, the story
of a family bond between he and his grandfather Curly,
of the three Stooges.
Speaker 4 (20:01):
Here on our American story