Moses Harry Horwitz (June 19, 1897 – May 4, 1975), better known by his stage name Moe Howard, was an American comedian and actor. He is best known as the leader of The Three Stooges, the farce comedy team who starred in motion pictures and television for four decades. That group initially 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 an irregular shape approximating a bowl cut.
Howard was born as Moses Harry Horwitz on June 19, 1897, in the Brooklyn, New York neighborhood of Bensonhurst, the fourth of five sons born to Jennie Gorovitz and Solomon Horwitz. They were of Lithuanian Jewish ancestry. He was called Moe as a child and later called himself Harry. His parents and brothers Benjamin ("Jack") and Irving weren't involved in show business, but he, his older brother Shemp Howard, and his younger brother Curly Howard eventually became known as members of the Three Stooges. He loved to read, as his older brother Jack recalled: "I had many Horatio Alger books, and it was Moe's greatest pleasure to read them. They started his imaginative mind working and gave him ideas by the dozen. I think they were instrumental in putting thoughts into his head to become a person of good character and successful." This helped him in his acting career; he could memorize his lines quickly and easily.
Howard's "bowl cut" hairstyle became his trademark, despite his mother initially refusing to cut his hair in childhood, letting it grow to shoulder length. He secretly cut his hair in his backyard shed after being frequently teased in school. During one appearance on The Mike Douglas Show in the 1970s, he stated, "I used to fight my way to school, in school, and back home from school."

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