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.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
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, Jerome Howard, best known as Curly.
Then one day the secret about their unknown grandfather was unveiled.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Here's Brad Server aka Curly.
Speaker 3 (00:44):
G to start this journey, we must first go back
to Lithuania. This were my great grandparents, Solomon and Jenny
Horwitz met and married. They later left for America and
arrived in Castlegarden, New York in eighteen ninety. Here they
(01:07):
would start their family of five boys, Irving Benjamin, Samuel, Moses,
and Jerome. Later the world would know the three and
his 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
(01:30):
Shemp and Moe were in their teens, they would sneak
off to Coney Island to watch the vaudeville acts. They
would later join these performers and were then discovered by
Ted Healy, a well known vaudeville actor. In time, they
met Lawrence Finberg, better known as Larry, and they became
Ted Healy and his stooges. In time, Shemp would leave
(01:53):
the act and baby brother filled in. The rest is
comedy history for the ages, Hi you College, You're afraid of?
Say Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls. I journ Stallion sy steps
(02:14):
inch by inch. 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.
(02:37):
My grandmother would remarry a year later to a man
named Moses Diamond. 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
(02:59):
Howard passed away at the age of forty eight. After
my grandfather's passing, she would legally be adopted by her stepfather,
who really had become her everyday dad. In early nineteen
sixty my mom met my father, Haskellalate Server, in Los Angeles, California.
(03:19):
In December, my brother, Darren was born, then in nineteen
sixty two, my sister Andrea, and then in nineteen sixty
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
(03:42):
brother's sister, and I lived with my mother. My dad
would then move to Pacific Palisades because he was doing
well in 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
(04:04):
we had something very special in our blood because we
were performing. My 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.
(04:26):
Later it would develop into performing makeshift musicals for you know,
my 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,
(04:48):
West Side Story, Soundy Music. And to this time, we
came home like every other kid after school. We came
home 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
(05:10):
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 brother and I both loved Curly the most.
But the problem with that was at this age I
(05:31):
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 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,
(05:53):
Darren to see his first Broadway musical, Fiddler on the Roof,
and he was at all when he saw the show.
I mean, after the show, when they were driving home,
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
(06:15):
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.
What do you mean, grandma, Yes, yes, yes, never mind
(06:35):
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
and he tells me and we're like, I mean, I
(06:58):
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're not ordinary people, we're more rons. And then what
are you supposed to do with that? I mean, did
(07:18):
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,
that's our grandfather, and it was like we didn't talk
(07:42):
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 four teen.
When she was three years old, she was you know,
(08:04):
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 man and an amazing grandfather to us, he
(08:25):
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
(08:46):
was the guy 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 little a.
Speaker 2 (09:05):
Hall pass and you've been listening to Brad Server or
tell a remarkable story.
Speaker 1 (09:10):
By the way, what a good shock. Right, my granddad's Curly.
I bought him a lot of hall passes.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
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
(09:44):
American stories and Brad servers story.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
Let's pick up what we last left off.
Speaker 3 (09:50):
So I continue to through the nineties build my career,
and I still at this point hadn't met anyone from
the threes 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, which
(11:42):
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 the Stooges
(12:03):
change their lives and how much the Stooges mean to them.
I want a turkey, they too, Oh so you want
a piece of turkey, give it me now, you got it.
And then other Stuge family members were at these events,
so I started building relationships with them and that was great,
(12:23):
and so I would continue it was about every year
we would go to these stooge 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,
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
(12:44):
the fans out there, of 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 stooge museum,
but it is three stories of the largest and greatest
stuge museum in the world. It's called the Stugium and
it's in Ambler, Pennsylvania, which there again isn't too far
(13:06):
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
the other talents and be able to play music. Was
out of the three of us, I call us the
(13:27):
grand Stooges was I was able to go up this
in my register on topic this, and it was it
was like, what what is that? I'm a victim of circumstance,
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
(13:51):
given curly gave me that that I had this kind
of high pitched voice slightly. So continue to go to
the Stooge events, and of course social media was happening
on big then and was on Facebook, and I was
reaching out to the fans and going back and forth,
listening to their stories, telling, you know, commenting them, telling
(14:12):
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. But in
twenty twelve, you know, something that I thought that would
never happen was the Stooges were going to be on
(14:32):
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. And Andy found
(14:53):
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, but
had such a background in the comedy trios and duos
(15:18):
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. He
was a great photographer with filming stuff. So it was
(15:39):
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
video that I think I remember doing that, it was
going to be my grandfather's one hundred and thirteenth birthday,
(16:02):
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
to different places and some people were celebrities, some people
were just people off the street. Most of them were
(16:22):
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
this for years and took so much punishment, and my
grandfather took so much punishment. The least I can do
(16:44):
is take one hundred and thirteen pies in one day.
And that video can be seen on YouTube on my
YouTube channel, 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,
we're all very positive. They loved it, they laughed, they
(17:04):
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 Server, 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 Stooge 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, Sharper, Curly's Grandson, build that brand.
You know, it represents my grandfather. I'm representing his legacy.
(19:14):
So I want to continue to do that. And I
just want to thank you for allowing me to be
on your show.
Speaker 2 (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 stage convention, we promise you.
Speaker 1 (19:38):
And there he met the fans who told.
Speaker 2 (19:40):
Him how much the Stooges had changed their lives and
how much the Stooges meant to them. And then it
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.
The three Stooges here on our American story