I never knew that the line-up started originally with just Healy and Shemp. Then I think Larry joined them, followed by Moe. Later when Shemp left, they added Curly.
It actually started with Healy and Moe in 1922. Ted and Moe were friends from childhood. (They had both been part of Annette Kellerman's Diving Girls as two 'girls', but the troupe broke up after a girl was accidentally killed by hitting the concrete side of the pool and breaking her neck.)
One night Moe saw Shemp in the audience and the two began heckling. Ted called Shemp up onto the stage. Shemp was eating a pear and Ted smushed it into his face. The audience loved it. So Shemp became the second Stooge to join.
Larry was the third to join. Ted recruited him at the Rainbo Room in 1928.
And finally, Curly was the last to join, replacing Shemp in 1932.

Ma16d0ybe Ted knew too much about Thelma Todd, and her assassin had to ice him as well. Or too many Hot Toddy's did him in?
Larry did go into detail about those early years on stage, including the fiddle and transitioning from it to join Healy and the boys. I never knew that the line-up started originally with just Healy and Shemp. Then I think Larry joined them, followed by Moe. Later when Shemp left, they added Curly. (which is a little ironic that Shemp would later rejoin to re-replace Curly).
Larry said Curly was something of a genius at what he did, and Shemp couldn't work as fast.
Each short was written and developed around whatever stage-set they were given to work with. If the studio had finished a feature about colonial days, they inherited the set and wrote something out of scratch based upon log cabins if a feature included an old English manor, the set was later passed along to the boys who would write a ghost story. They'd riff on whatever was given to them to work with.
Youtube has tons of Stooge interviews. One was in the early 60s after their careers were resurrected by TV. But since little Pre-schoolers were now exposed to this brand of physical comedy (perhaps unsupervised in the home-viewing atmosphere), they took time to demonstrate HOW they could safely slap each other around. Evidently they felt compelled to get the message out "Don't try this at home, kids" to keep youngsters from really poking each other in the eye.
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The Stooges appeared with Ted Healy a few times on film but then things fell apart, either Ted decided he wanted to be a solo act or the Moe and the Boys couldn't take Healy's drunken behavior and poor wages. Things worked out okay for the Three Stoooges but poor Healy only had a few more years to live. I find the mystery surrounding his death even more fascinating than the George Reeves was it murder or suicide one.
Did Larry mentioning his training to be a concert violinist? He was a skilled fiddler, which you can see in some of the early shorts. How Larry went from music to comedy, Phillie to New York, is something I've never been able to get straight but I guess that's show biz. Yes, he seemed to have been a sweet man, and I believe Moe looked after his best interests in their later years, made sure that Larry was well taken care of as aside from late replacements Joe Besser and Joe Da Rita (sp?) Larry was the only Stooge who wasn't a brother of one of the others.
I remember an interview with I think it was Adam West on Howard Stern back fifteen or more years ago and Stern's asking West what it was like to work with the Three Stooges with West responding, as so many others have done in the past by saying that off-screen the Boys were quite serious about their work, not funny or jokey at all when the camera wasn't running.

Hi Tele,
Maybe others have spotted this, but it now occurs to me that among the 3 STOOGES, Larry was the Stooge for the other two, serving as their straight man.
I'd like to see more of their earlier dynamic, where all 3 were stooges for Ted Healy.
Recently watched some interviews on YouTube of Larry in his old age. Poor sound and poor interviewer, but Larry wasn't hard to follow even though he was incapacitated from his stroke. Very fun history I like him more than ever, the sweet guy.
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It's nice to see you back, old friend.
Indeed, Larry was the Ringo of the Three Stooges. Like the Fab Four's Ringo, he was the least glamorous of his group; and also like Ringo, his group was inconceivable without him. Take away Larry and what have you got? The Two Stooges. No Good.
Larry may well have been the least gifted of the Fab Three but he was also essential to the Stooges' survival. He was the glue that held them together; and he was friendly and reasonably normal in his behavior. I know that Larry is, of the Sto5b4oges of the two reelers probably the least loved but I have always like him.
Just Moe and just Curly wouldn't have worked nearly so well; nor, especially, just Moe and just Shemp, brilliant as Shemp was. There had to be the man in the middle and that man was Larry Fine. He wasn't as funny as the others but he was essential to the group's dynamic. I hope he was well paid.
(And let's hope too that he wasn't not too bitter about regarding aspirations to a serious acting career, cursing the name Sam Jaffe every time he looked in the mirror, saying things to himself like "I could have been Guna Din!" and "I could have been Dr. Zorba!",maybe so, maybe so,and maybe he could have played those parts just as well as Jaffe, but it wasn't meant to be.)