Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), known professionally as
Moe Howard, was an
American actor and
comedian best known as the
de facto leader of
the Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades. That group originally started out as
Ted Healy and His Stooges, an act that toured the vaudeville circuit. Moe's distinctive hairstyle came about when he was a boy and cut off his curls with a pair of scissors, producing a ragged shape approximating a
bowl cut.