A Las Vegan remembers her cousin, the Stooge

Monday, April 24, 2000 | 8:54 a.m.

Growing up a Stooge cousin soitenly didn't hoyt Mary Schwartz, nyuk, nyuk, nyuk.

The 55-old Las Vegas resident remembers all the children in her neighborhood swarming around to get a peek at her second cousin, Larry Fine, whenever he and his wife, Mabel, came to visit the family at their modest apartment in an area now dominated by the Stratosphere hotel-casino.

Schwartz was shocked when she learned as a young girl that Fine was her cousin. She thought he was her uncle.

"I always called him Uncle Larry," she said. "I didn't realize until he gave me an autographed picture of the Three Stooges that he was actually my cousin. He signed it 'From your cousin Larry.' "

Her mother then explained the familial ties.

"She told me that Larry's mother, Fannie Lieberman Feinberg, and my mother's father were brother and sister. My mother was 14 years older than Larry and she used to babysit him when they were growing up in Philadelphia," Schwartz said.

Fine was the member of the Three Stooges who always looked as if he had just stuck his finger into an electric outlet -- his receding hairline accentuating the mop of hair that grew like an out-of-control hedge around the sides of his head.

It was the early 1950s when Schwartz was a hit among her friends, in part because everyone knew she was related to Fine. "I was always excited to see Larry and Mabel arrive in their enormous Lincoln Continental," Schwartz, a para-legal, recalled.

"Larry's initials were emblazoned on brass plates on the driver's side door. During one visit, one of the kids in the neighborhood stole one of the initials."

But her cousin didn't get angry.

"I never saw him angry in all the years I knew him," she said. "He was always the same, no matter where he was or who he was around. I never remember him being angry or annoyed."

That covers her entire life, which began in Manhattan, N.Y., where she was born, and included stops around the country before settling permanently in Las Vegas about 25 years ago.

Schwartz's father, David Schwartz, was a professional gambler. Her mother, Lorraine, was a big band singer. In the late '40s David Schwartz moved his family to Florida while he helped set up casinos for their owners in Cuba.

In 1947 he brought the family to Las Vegas to help open the Flamingo casino-hotel, where he worked as a pit boss and in other capacities until 1956. That year he became ill and moved the family back to Florida, where he died in 1958.

While they were here, Fine and his wife visited the family frequently. Schwartz said that she learned only recently that her cousin had a gambling addiction. "I didn't realize it then, but that's probably why he came here so much," she said.

She described Fine as "extremely humble, never a movie star type" who was a pianist and classical violinist.

When she was a child her family would visit the Fines, either at their estate in the Los Feliz area of Los Angeles, or at the Hollywood Knickerbocker Hotel, where they later lived.

Sometimes Fine would play the piano while she danced. "He called me his 'little Las Vegas doll,' " Schwartz said. But she was never inspired to enter show business. "I didn't have any talent," she said.

She recalled that Fine worshipped his wife. "Mabel was a platinum blonde Irish woman (whom) Larry called 'Angel.' She was a petite ball of fire. Larry idolized her," Schwartz said. "He shopped for her clothes and shoes. He had marvelous taste and would come back from shopping like a proud peacock, carrying innumerable outfits and shoes."

In 1966 the Fines celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary at the Riviera hotel-casino. In the spring of 1967, when Fine and the Stooges were on a tour in the East, Mabel died of a heart attack.

"He went into a deep depression," Schwartz said. "After some time passed he tried going out on a few dates, but no one could replace Mabel. To fill the void he took art and pottery classes."

In 1970, during the filming of a made-for-television movie, "Kook's Tour," Fine suffered a stroke that left him partially paralyzed. Schwartz visited him occasionally in the Motion Picture Country Home in Los Angeles' San Fernando Valley.

The last time she saw him was a few days before he died of a massive stroke in 1975. "I wasn't surprised to hear about Larry's first stroke. I knew he was lonesome for Mabel and probably didn't have the will to go on after he lost her," she said.

On her last visit she remembers that the nursing home showed a Three Stooges film in Fine's honor.

"When he was brought to the theater in a wheelchair he was beaming his endearing, genuine smile," she said. "His fans, both adults and children, bombarded him for autographs and heaped attention on him. This was one of his last days in the sun and he was soaking it in. That day he not only looked like my Uncle Larry, but like the real movie star as well.

"To me, he wasn't a Stooge, but a prince."